


Dry Fire

by okoriwadsworth



Series: Saving Each Other [5]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012), Supergirl (TV 2015), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe, BAMF Laurel Lance, BAMF Oliver Queen, BAMF Sara Lance, Barry Allen is The Flash, Evil Kate Kane, F/M, Laurel Lance is the Black Canary, Minor Malcolm Merlyn, Protective Sara Lance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 15:08:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 24,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29066340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okoriwadsworth/pseuds/okoriwadsworth
Summary: This is Season 2 of the Arrow universe created by Barry Allen in the first work of this series. There will be bits and pieces of canon that remain, but I will leave it up to you to figure out who gets what and where. Enjoy the show.
Relationships: Barry Allen/Kara Danvers, Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen
Series: Saving Each Other [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1929484
Comments: 28
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is Season 2 of the Arrow universe created by Barry Allen in the first work of this series. There will be bits and pieces of canon that remain, but I will leave it up to you to figure out who gets what and where. Enjoy the show.

**_At a small Shaolin monastery in Mount Rainier National Park……._ **

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Oliver Queen’s POV)

It had been months since he and Laurel defeated the Merlyns and stopped them from blowing up the Glades, but his life had not gotten easier. If anything, it was becoming more and more complicated with time. First of all, he had somehow been gifted memories from a previous timeline courtesy of Barry Allen’s kindness. Apparently, to hear the Flash explain it, he had died in a universal crisis leading a team of heroes. Part of that felt good. It pleased him to know that he was relied upon, and looked on as a leader. But the idea that it wasn’t with Laurel by his side, calling the plays, sat poorly with him. He knew that if there was ever a thing like that again, Laurel would be there. Sure, at their cores, they were just an archer and a peerless martial artist but the principles remained strong. If you could defend your home, you should.

And then there was what happened after Laurel and Oliver arrived back at the Queen Mansion. He was set upon by a gleeful Thea, who hugged him and told him that she was so happy that he was safe. That was normal. What wasn’t was the bonded and nervous-looking courier waiting for him in the front hallway. Turned out, Lady Shiva had kept a surprisingly supple whisper network in Starling City and had been impressed by what she had seen. Impressed enough, as it happened, to invite him to train at a monastery outside of town to get her full attentions.

That is where he found himself, being walked through more kung-fu styles than he knew what to do with and being taught an ancient variant on Muay Thai called Lethwei that he had been interested in but never found the time to study on.

And today, finally, he was finished with his studies. Lady Shiva had made it so that he had become a black belt in Black Tiger Fist Kung-Fu in addition to the Southern Praying Mantis style of Kung-Fu, Lethwei, and Tang Soo Do. Beyond that, she had fused these new skills with his previous mastery of Pencak Silat into a style that was focused and powerful. Just like he needed to be.

Grabbing his quiver and compound bow, Oliver Queen licked his lips and smiled. He was going to take Laurel out for a date, and they were going to talk about their future. It had amused him that the Green Arrow and Black Canary had become so interesting amongst the tabloid and teenage magazine set. But, he supposed, the city needed romance to distract them from what they had been saved from. Besides, as he could personally attest, the Green Arrow really did love the Black Canary.

He had dreamt about her day and night. It was her smile, and the promise of her joy when she saw what he had become, that kept him going when Shiva’s training became almost too brutal to continue. For that, he had Barry to thank. Remembering how cold he was, how little joy he had in his life by the end, made every millisecond of his life with Laurel a treasure he was not about to give up on. 

And now, he was headed home to her. Grabbing his jade-green gear bag, he walked to the door of the monastery only to suddenly sense someone behind him. Turning slowly, knowing who it was, he bowed to Lady Shiva genuinely. She had given him the tools he needed to be the best version of himself.

“I am headed back to Starling City, sensei. There are things I must do, and a city in need of saving. I can’t live with myself if I didn’t fight for it,” he said, hoping Shiva wouldn’t respond with violence as he now understood why everyone called her the finest martial artist to ever draw breath. Considering that he knew how good Laurel was, crossing Shiva was not something he was particularly interested in doing.

“I understand. The battles you are on are like my previous students, the Bat in Gotham, and your beloved Laurel Lance. I hope you use my teachings to become what your city needs. As far as I am concerned, you are a master.”

And with that, she bowed back to him. He didn’t know how to deal with that. He didn’t even know what to say. But he knew that there was one person who could help him make sense of it all.

Laurel.

**_Meanwhile, at the Queen Mansion……_ **

\----------------------------------------------------

(Laurel Lance’s POV)

While Oliver had been training, so had she. Sure, she had been keeping up on her regular martial arts work. There would never be a time when she would feel alright with slipping below world-class with her hands, elbows, knees, and legs. The world was too important, and the people in Starling City too valuable, to slack on her training. And in the days and weeks after the Undertaking had been thwarted, she had finally made it to the place where she could train people alongside Ted. He felt comfortable with her skill level and proficiency, and soon she was guiding people through throwing basic strikes and cautioning them against doing the “stuff Black Canary did”. She felt such pride in knowing people saw her as something to aspire to, even if there was no one in the gym who had the skills to get to where she currently was.

As she was coming to understand, the Black Canary meant something to people. To be a role model, to represent more to people than she had as just a law student, was never something she had wanted to do. But saving her city, sharing the mission Oliver had been sworn to fulfill, meant she had to become ok with the idea of being someone people looked up to. Oliver had grown cool with the prospect, so she would. Because the truth is that she wanted to understand Oliver, understand the feeling of drawing back a bow and hitting a target.

So, she had, through Ben Turner and Ricardo Diaz, found the best archer in the world. As it happened, Nyssa Raatko was only all too interested in moving to Starling City and doing something more with her life than teaching sheikhs how to shoot arrows for their hunting trips. So to become the personal archery teacher for the Black Canary was something she was only all too happy to do. It was not a martial art in the traditional sense, so there were still things she was getting comfortable with and shots she was not exactly expert in making. But everything Oliver was, everything he had gone through, she wanted to share. And while that started with learning how to fire a bow, even if it was a laminated longbow instead of Ollie’s compound bow, she wanted it to be for everything.

When they grew old together, she wanted there to be no secrets between them. So, when he returned, they would talk about it. And she knew just how to do it.

(Thea Queen’s POV)

Ever since Oliver’s boat went down in the Sea of Japan, things had been different around here. For one, Laurel had left the same day for a “meditation and mindfulness” retreat and come back utterly jacked. Thea wasn’t gay, but she also wasn’t **_BLIND_**. It felt like, more and more, Laurel had become the most beautiful woman in the world. She hadn’t quite known when it had happened, but the sweet ingenue who Laurel had once been was instead a confident and deeply intelligent natural beauty.

But with that new physique, and the soaring confidence that came with it, also came with questions. For one, this Black Canary and Green Arrow seemed to be heroes in this house and that was strange. Thea still hung around the rich and famous, after all. To everyone else, the Black Canary and Green Arrow were figures of fear. But here, they were beloved. What was the difference?

Then, there was mom. When Oliver went on that boat 5 years ago, she had been cool to everyone and spent a lot of time in her bedroom weeping. Even when she had met Walter, it wasn’t like it used to be. And then her older brother came back, and it almost immediately became like it used to be. Something was going on, and she wasn’t sure what it was.

She couldn’t shake this feeling that her mom, and Oliver, were somehow lying to her. Mom had told her that it was her responsibility, and would be Thea’s someday, to protect the family’s secrets. So why did she suddenly get the sense that there were secrets now that didn’t include her?

**_At Wildcat Muay Thai and Kickboxing in the Glades….._ **

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Ted Grant’s POV)

This Roy Harper kid was beginning to become a problem. For one, he was a truly skilled fighter. While he doubted that there would be anyone who could reasonably be excepted to compete with Dinah Laurel Lance in terms of pure skill, this Roy Harper kid was most definitely in the team picture for the very best martial artists he had been around. But Ted was beginning to realize that what Roy Harper wanted to do with his skills was not to compete in sport martial arts. Instead, he wanted to be a vigilante. What made it worse was that he was increasingly getting the sense that Roy knew who Ted had been in a past life, and thought he held the key to figuring out who the Green Arrow and Black Canary were. But that wasn’t the worst of it.

The worst of it was that Roy Harper had everything you would need to actually become a vigilante. Not just the skills, although that was vital to the mission. No, he had the spirit. Many a day would start with their training being postponed because Roy had to take his mother to chemotherapy, or drive a family friend to start their new job. Hell, Roy had only heard of Ted’s Mexican heritage once and he had gone to the trouble of finding him a rare compilation of fights held in the old Stadio Azteca in Mexico City. He couldn’t help but like the kid.

But what he wanted to do, and what made the most logical sense, were two utterly different things. What Ted wanted to do was drop the kid at Oliver Queen’s doorstep and have him become Oliver’s protégé, because the natural ability Oliver showed for being a leader was something that both Ted and Ben Turner agreed needed to be stimulated. But if that did happen, Ted could see the problem. They were both so unfairly YOUNG that he didn’t know how much Oliver could teach.

But then Ted remembered. The five years on Yeon Og. Oliver didn’t talk about it that much, except to Laurel. Ben, too, whenever something he was learning contradicted a previous lesson he had learned on that island. If he had skills like reading a room and people, in addition to all he knew about archery, that would be useful. Hell, Oliver would probably admit he could use another bowman out there in the field with him.

So, this weekend, Roy would get started to be trained in everything Ted knew. And then, if that didn’t turn out to be a horrible disaster, he’d send him off to the Green Arrow to begin work as his protégé.

He hoped he wasn’t making a horrible mistake.

**_At Chuck Knox International Airport…….._ **

\-----------------------------------------------------------

(Simon LaCroix’s POV)

The thing about being a famous archer is that there aren’t that many of you, so whenever a new one shows up it’s always exciting. And, as he was discovering, this new one seemed to have his entire city abuzz with delight. The Green Arrow, whoever was under the hood, had appeared to make several mistakes without particularly realizing that he was making them.

For one, whoever this child was, he had decided to use a compound bow. A true master, like he knew himself to be, would never be caught dead with something like that. If you wanted to really prove how good you were, you shot with no assistance. A recurve bow, or even the longbow he carried which was a direct descendant in build of the old English longbowmen, was proof of one’s skill. Not that abominable compound bow, which made even the hardest shots easier. Add to that those stupid “trick arrows” which looked a lot like stuff you’d see in a circus somewhere, and he could tell the Green Arrow didn’t want to be taken seriously by his peers. He doubted if he even knew there WERE peers.

Well, that would change. The man who hired him wanted discretion, and for him to play the long game. Apparently, he had destroyed some of his plans before and wanted him to suffer before he was beaten.

Komodo could assist with that.

**_At Slabside Heights Federal Prison………_ **

\-----------------------------------------------------------

(Malcolm Merlyn’s POV)

He would make sure they **BURNED**. Whoever was behind the hoods of the Green Arrow and Black Canary needed to burn. The Glades was standing. Woozy, sure, but still standing. And this simply couldn’t be.

He would get out of here. He had resources and friends far beyond even what the FBI’s forensic accountants had found. And when he did, he would make sure of one thing.

The Green Arrow and the Black Canary would suffer, painfully and slowly, for defeating him and his daughter.


	2. The Stage

**_At the Queen Mansion……_ **

\----------------------------------------------------------

(Oliver Queen’s POV)

It was still weird to know that he was a multi-discipline black belt. Not necessarily weird in a bad way, but just strange. He knew that things would change, had to change, based on what the Flash had done. He couldn’t be the same person he had been in this last timeline. He had to evolve. And so, he thought with the beginnings of a smile, he would. If what this new world required of him was to be a master hand-to-hand fighter, and a master archer, he would be those things. He wanted to be a comfort to his friends, and he wanted to be able to look Laurel in the eye.

That, even on Yeon-Og, was all he ever wanted. That island, filled with dangers though it was, bled off the worst parts of him. His need for wealth and power was something he looked back at now with shame, not pride. Sure, his money would help him but he would make sure he would bankroll the right things. He would promote charitable works and help to fund good government programs to make sure the corruption at City Hall and in Bellingham was gone for good. He didn’t think he would ever stop being the Green Arrow. But when he wasn’t under the hood, he wanted to make sure his city loved him as much as they did when he was. That was a question for another time. Because, while he did want his city to love him, the one person whose love he truly treasured would be here in a little while.

It was true that he was planning on using his fortune to see well done in the world. But sometimes, and only for Laurel, sometimes he would use his money for basic things. Right now, he was making Laurel dinner. He knew that amongst the many other things she had done with Lady Shiva in Indonesia, learning how to cook was one of them. He had enjoyed the Korean noodle dishes she had made for him after patrols because they both reminded him of Slade and Shado while also feeling like something was connecting them across time and space. Even when he was going through hell, even when all around him was dark and cold, Laurel was there.

But tonight, he wanted to make her something different. Something he knew she missed. So, he had taken his lime-green Kawasaki ZX-10R out into the Little Tokyo section of the Glades and picked up what he needed. These, more so than the rich and flighty his mother consorted with, were his people. And as he grabbed the supplies he needed from the small Asian markets throughout the town, he knew what he was doing. Oliver Queen needed to be here just as much as the Green Arrow did.

(Laurel Lance’s POV)

The Flash. The Fastest Man Alive. That was who had saved her and Ollie’s love, and sent her to learn everything she needed to know to become the person she was now. She didn’t think, as long as she drew breath, she could ever be thankful enough or repay the debt she owed him.

He had explained, before he returned to his own city and his own enemies, why he had sent Laurel to Lady Shiva. “You had the spirit of a warrior, but in your past life, you never became the fighter you should have. Life made it so that others took that mantle for you, and while they were good, it always felt like something was missing. Honestly, it was like there was a hole in his team and it always seemed to be shaped like you. That’s why I sent you to Lady Shiva because you needed to be his equal partner and she could show you how faster than anyone I know. This city needs a lot of saving, and the two of you can do it. Not him by himself, and not you by yourself. Together.”

She didn’t know how to think about that. From what Oliver could tell her, he had apparently hired an undercover cop by the name of Tina Boland to do her job for the last three years of their mission. Hell, her younger sister Sara had even suited up for a year and change in Starling City before becoming…. A captain of a time-traveling pirate ship? It was all too weird to contemplate.

But this, being the Black Canary and saving her home from damage, was what she always was supposed to be doing. That was clear to her now. And while she didn’t think she could ever truly thank the Flash in the way she needed to, it didn’t mean she would ever stop trying. Because that man in the red suit, who seemed to always be eating something, had given her the greatest gift she could have ever possibly had. He had brought her true love back to her.

She’d talk about what they could do for the Flash over dinner with Oliver. Dinner with Oliver. Just saying that out loud gave her a thrill that she didn’t know she could feel.

They were lovers, and heroes, and partners. She was her own person, she knew that. There were things she did that Oliver couldn’t understand. But they stayed together because they had the same goals and dreams. There were enemies in the shadows. There were people left to bring to justice, and a city to bring back from the edge of certain doom. Their city needed them.

Starling City needed Laurel Lance, and Oliver Queen, just as much as it needed the Green Arrow and the Black Canary.

**_At the Quiver……_ **

\-----------------------------------------------

(Curtis Holt’s POV)

Whenever they weren’t on patrol, the Quiver seemed to lose some of the life that Laurel and Oliver brought to it. It wasn’t a problem, really. It gave him, and John Diggle, the chance to re-supply the tools for what their mission was. He couldn’t imagine how anyone could have done this job if they had to smith their own arrows and escrima sticks or make their own orders for surgical stitches and needles. It seemed a guaranteed recipe for burnout.

Still, though, the silence was becoming noticeable. He could hear the traditional Chinese music Laurel played while she meditated or did her Wing Chun shapes on the striking dummies until it was like ballet for how smooth it was. It even galled him to say this, but he missed Oliver’s speed metal as he fired his arrows and took down notes about all the new ideas that apparently came to him while he slept or did whatever else it was he did before he arrived here.

This was their home, their sanctuary to become the people their city needed them to become. It could not have been easy for either of them to decide to go down this path, and harder still to realize what it would require for each of them to make sure the task was done. This was a big thing they were asking of themselves.

So if they needed him and John to keep their armories and granaries stocked, and Ted and Ben to keep their skills obsidian-sharp, it was the least they could do. This was a noble task, and no one in this building believed it was done.

Tempest had not fallen. Nowhere close. A conspiracy like that didn’t just die in one year, because it didn’t come to life in just one year. The Merlyns were in federal prison, but he was unsure of how long that was going to hold.

Their work was not done. Nowhere close.

**_Back at the Queen Mansion………_ **

\---------------------------------------------------

(Laurel Lance’s POV)

Oh god, these hamburgers. As Lady Shiva molded her into a living encyclopedia of martial arts brilliance, it was the memory of the things at home she loved that kept her sane. Every day, for five years, was pain. Three times a day, training forms that were so traditional that they were not translated into English, could cripple even the strongest woman. And she did not feel so arrogant as to admit that, when she first arrived at Lady Shiva’s monastery, she was not the strongest woman. She was a child who could not run a mile, or do any of the things that Shiva demanded of her students.

But Shiva molded her into something different, something special. Even then, even as she could feel herself changing into the very best version of herself, Laurel still missed home. She missed Sara and her souffles, and Quentin and his gruffness that hid true caring. But, like always, she missed Oliver. She had heard about his boat sinking on her way to the monastery. The monastery that the Flash had sent her to, knowing Oliver would survive and they would become the guardian angels for Starling City. They were able to save the city from Tempest because of him. She had found her best self, her true self, because of him.

“Ollie? We have to help the Flash. For all that he gave us, for all that he allowed us to become, we have to show him we’re there for him” she said and watched as Oliver put down his own burger.

(Oliver Queen’s POV)

Barry Allen was a meta-human. He had to have that distinction explained to him, but apparently, something had happened with a lightning bolt and a particle accelerator and now he could run a mile in 45 seconds. There was some energy source that helped to fuel him, something called the Speed Force, and it had been the Speed Force who had given Barry the means to bestow the gift he had given to him and Laurel.

Once again, his love was right. They needed to help Barry. But how?

“Let’s finish dinner, and then we’ll head to the Quiver. We DO need to help the Flash, but we also don’t want to show up there and make it seem like he can’t take care of himself. He did for us what we could not do for ourselves. We have to live up to the same standard for him.”

He knew how he would feel if the Flash had shown up to his city and just dealt with the Merlyns, instead of letting him do it for himself. It would have been an insult, and it would have colored their entire relationship for the worse.

But Laurel was right. They needed to offer their help.

So, thanking god he could still do this, Oliver called and asked for usage of their private jet. It was time to head to Central City.

**_Meanwhile, in Central City at Mercury Labs……_ **

\----------------------------------------------------

(Barry Allen’s POV)

He didn’t think he could be as personally annoyed as he had been with Eobard Thawne in the last timeline. Thawne had killed his mother, and up until the Speed Force had cleaned up his mess, created a turn of events that destroyed the Flash’s allies and friendships.

But he couldn’t put Thawne behind bars. He remembered what happened the last time he did that. Seemed like, until he could come up with another way, Eobard Thawne would be in his life always. That meant, right now, he had to shiver when “Harrison Wells” announced the particle accelerator. This was like a game of cat-and-mouse between him and the Reverse-Flash, and the city was stuck in the middle.

The Flash had been a phenom, a thing that existed and no one could quite explain how. Barry, of course, knew but he wasn’t about to let anyone else in on the secret. Technically, he had been hit by a lightning bolt and fell into a combination of chemicals that combined to give him super-speed. That was the story he was officially going with. But not telling the truth of the thing? That went for all the other speedsters Barry had met. He told Wally and Jesse Quick to come up with their own ideas, fitting as they were dating and heroes in Coast City. He wasn’t particularly worried about Jay Garrick or the Earth-1990 Barry Allen, because they could have been hit by the particle accelerator on their earths. Besides, he had promised the Speed Force he wouldn’t go traveling throughout the multiverse unless he had absolutely no choice to do so to save a life or the world at large.

But tonight, it would happen. He hoped Thawne knew what he was doing. And then, in the cortex, he saw the Green Arrow and the Black Canary. What were they doing here?

(Laurel Lance’s POV)

It was weird to see the Flash just standing still. From all that she had been able to see, he was a literal ball of motion and speed. What she knew about his powers could fill a thimble, she knew that much. But she knew his heart and his spirit. Someone who had been willing to sacrifice all they knew and loved just to help someone else get their own dreams for themselves was someone she could not help but admire.

But as she watched him talk to a particularly bubbly young man and another young woman in a lab coat, she could tell that the Flash had people who did for him what Curtis, Ben, Ted, and John did for her and Oliver.

And then, with frightening speed, the world went black.

(Barry Allen’s POV)

Oh god. He had turned it on. The wave was flowing throughout Central City. It hit Cisco and Caitlin, but he wasn’t worried. It would awaken Vibe and Killer Frost, so that couldn’t be a bad thing. But then he watched as the wave hit Laurel, and she slumped to the floor. What had Thawne DONE?


	3. Love Is a Many-Colored Thing

**_At Mercury Labs in Central City……_ **

\-----------------------------------------------------

(Oliver Queen’s POV)

He was powerless and useless. This wasn’t a problem he could shoot at or fight. The love of his life, the person who made those 5 years on Yeon-Og pleasurable, was sitting on a makeshift hospital bed in a city that felt like a warzone after bombs had been dropped. He supposed that’s what Harrison Wells had actually done, dropped a bomb.

He didn’t know much about why it had happened. That was the province of the Flash, who seemed terrifically annoyed by how that had gone. Last he saw, Barry had sped off in the streets towards STAR Labs to find out what had happened and why. He couldn’t focus on that. Cisco had, in between trips to the bathroom to throw up, hand-milled communications devices for Oliver, Barry, and Laurel when she woke up. He got the sense that they were going to stay longer than they had planned, and be what Barry’s city needed.

This wasn’t Starling. It wasn’t a city teetering on the edge of being condemned. This was a place of brightness and joy. He could tell how it was that a place like this could produce a man who would be willing to sacrifice his love, and his dreams, to ensure that someone else had a fair chance at theirs. He treasured that about Barry, and likely always would. And when Laurel was awake, he’d tell him so.

But for right now, he couldn’t think about any of that. His mind wouldn’t let him. All he could see is Laurel, asleep on a hospital bed as doctors worked on her. It was his nightmare.

**_Meanwhile, inside Laurel Lance’s mind……_ **

\------------------------------------------------------------

(Laurel Lance’s POV)

There was something wrong. She knew that.

She knew she had been in Central City when she had been hit by something like a golden-colored wave. So why was it that she was back in Indonesia, in Lady Shiva’s monastery? Looking down, she noticed she was also in her gi. Not the dobok Curtis had constructed for her. Her gi. The gi Lady Shiva had made her wear the first day she arrived.

Not knowing what else to do, Laurel began to practice her forms and shapes. And then, as she finished her final set of 100 kicks and the flowing inside and outside blocks that defined the Wing Chun style, she felt her foot grabbed and knew instantly what was going on. It was Shiva, the unquestioned GODDESS of martial arts.

But more than that, Shiva had been her teacher. Her body was apparently being altered by that wave that hit her, and to give her the chance to cope, her mind made her think of this as another skill to be taught. Not taught, as she came to think of it, but MASTERED. Shiva had taken a quiet young girl who could barely throw a punch and had, one form at a time, turned her into a confident and fully-grown woman who could be called a natural polymath for the martial arts. Over five years of Shiva’s direct tutelage, Laurel had become what she was supposed to become. And now, apparently, there was something more, some missing piece that was finally fulfilled.

When she woke up, she would train this skill whatever it was. Shiva would be proud of her.

**_Back at Mercury Labs…….._ **

\-----------------------------------------------------

(Oliver Queen’s POV)

He was meditating. It had been something taught to him by one of Lady Shiva’s students, a man named Tim Drake, to keep his head about him when things got too complicated. Apparently, this Tim Drake was a student of Shiva’s at the request of his father. That was an interesting story, and one he wanted to hear about someday, but now was clearly not the time.

The love of his life was in a hospital bed, and he was so angry about it that he could literally feel his heartbeat in his temples. So, not knowing what else to do, he meditated. Truthfully, he wanted to go somewhere and shoot arrows but he could not. As it happened, his compound bow was back in the hotel, kept in a cashmere-lined case inside a miniature temperature-controlled vault. He could remember, from the last timeline, how he had gone through 7 bows in 8 years specifically because his team had never conceived of the possibility that the weapons of the Green Arrow could be damaged by constant exposure to the elements. Sometimes, as his mind whirred through all the thoughts that WEREN’T about Laurel suffering in a hospital bed someplace, he wondered if the version of him that existed in that alternate universe really didn’t mind dying. He couldn’t envision that being his life now.

He did not want to abandon Laurel, to leave her with his children and his quest. They would go on together, for as long as it took, and they would be done. He would not stop until they could rest, and rest for good. 

So, as he finally opened his eyes and saw his love smiling back at him, things would be ok. And then the Flash came back.

(Barry Allen’s POV)

Thawne knew. He had always suspected Thawne knew, honestly. But to hear him admit he knew was beyond the pale. The worst part of it was how Thawne explained it. It was the lightning, he said. “Barry, do you not remember how you looked when you were an adult? When you had your lightning as an adult, it was rich and golden, like a man who knew what he wanted. The Flash I remember had lightning that was young, unsure of himself like you were once. So, you and I will be doing this forever. But honestly, Barry, you should be thanking me. I gave you everything you ever wanted, AGAIN.”

He hated Thawne’s arrogance, and he hated more the very real knowledge that Thawne was absolutely right. He hadn’t thought of it, because he was just so happy to have done what he did. But in the cold light of day, he saw it now. If you knew as much about speed as Eobard Thawne undoubtedly did, seeing someone as young as Barry was with a level of speed only found in mature speedsters would have tipped him off.

For as much as he had changed, it was nature reminding him of a lesson he had learned a while ago: Nature abhorred a vacuum.

What else had he changed?

But before he worked that out, Laurel needed to be seen by a doctor. Good thing he knew a couple.

(Dr. Henry Allen’s POV)

His life was incomprehensibly strange at the moment. First, his son became the fastest man alive. Literally, he could run 2 miles to Coast City to pick up the best pizza on the West Coast and be back before Henry opened up a beer. And then, Barry explains that the man who killed his wife really WAS a man in red lightning who did it to make his son become the hero he was sooner. And now, here he was looking over x-rays and CAT scan information to discover that one of his son’s best friends had a laryngeal blockage but that she otherwise seemed fine. In fact, as he looked at it more, it almost seemed like it was…. was it a new set of vocal cords?

He hadn’t done his ear, nose, and throat rotations in a while but that seemed to be the only thing that made sense. What was his world now?

(Laurel Lance’s POV)

There was something in her throat, like a frog that just wouldn’t leave. It didn’t prevent her from speaking, which she was thankful for. But still, it was weird. Like she thought that she could just reach into her throat and pull it out.

Still, though, she remembered that whatever this was, it had to be of some use. It did not feel like it was a burden or a curse, but rather a skill to be learned. So, not knowing what else to do, she asked for an empty room and began to do her katas. Whatever this skill was, she wanted to feel moored to the person she had been before she got it.

And as she walked through her Shotokan katas, realizing that her time in the hospital bed had made her movements feel stiff and not as flowing as she knew they needed to be, it suddenly happened. Because this was her new life, it happened when she let out her first Kiai. Instantly, a pile of thermometers and other medical equipment clattered to the floor. Well, that solved that. Apparently, she had some sonic powers.

Now to go find Barry and Oliver and tell them.

**_The next morning, at a Mercury Labs acoustics testing center…….._ **

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(Laurel Lance’s POV)

Laurel Lance always tried her best to keep to some semblance of a morning routine. 20 minutes of Tai Chi and meditation to keep herself centered, and then coffee rich with milk and turbinado sugar. It had been Ricardo Diaz who had given this to her. Shiva had taught her martial arts, but she wasn’t really a person. She was a phantasm, a demi-god made flesh. Ricardo Diaz was a person and made sure that Laurel found balance in all things. She could still hear him now, in his Filipino-accented English, explaining that “if you cannot master yourself, how can you expect to master all that we have to teach you?”

But right now, she was seeing that the training Ricardo Diaz had taken her through was about more than just blocking strikes and delivering her own offense. Right now, she could imagine what would happen if she was not as used to being taught something and having to meld it with previously earned skills.

So, when Cisco Ramon, Oliver Queen, and Barry Allen showed up, she nodded at them and waited to be told what to do next.

(Cisco Ramon’s POV)

This was odd. Ever since he had been hit with the particle accelerator wave, a whole flush of memories from a previous timeline had begun to weave in with what he knew now. It was weird, knowing what his best friend had done, but he understood. The Speed Force had given him the chance to start things over, to do things the right way, and he had taken the chance. All of them would in his position.

As it happened, he had given Oliver the chance to be the hero he should have been the whole time. Truth be told, it had always felt like the previous version of Oliver wasn’t actually a hero. It was a job for him, something he did because he felt like no one could do it as well as him. Near the end, especially, Cisco got the sense that he was DYING for someone to pick up his mantle and do his job. But since no one could, Oliver kept going until everything but his will was gone.

So to see this Oliver, smiling and laughing with Barry, was FUN.

But the thing he was having the most fun with was that Laurel, who had always been kinder to him than just about anyone else on Team Arrow, was fully in form as the Black Canary far earlier than she had been in that old timeline. Sure, that suit could use work… a lot of work. She was also a far better fighter than she had been in the last timeline, but there were things about her that were still Laurel.

For one, she seemed happy to be the Black Canary. He supposed that was the big difference between the old timeline and this one. This wasn’t a thing they HAD to be doing like they hated it but knew no one else could do it. They loved being the Green Arrow and the Black Canary. He could just tell.

But how to get the most out of this new, non-tech, Canary Cry? Then he remembered. Mercury Labs had been developing sonics technology to heal broken and cracked bones, so they still had some noise dosimeters just lying around. He also knew they needed their top-of-the-line earbuds. This was about to get messy.

(Laurel Lance’s POV)

So, just scream. That was what she was being asked to do. Not show the Flash how to do Gensei-Ryu karate, which she got the very real sense would be tremendous for someone with his superhuman speed and reflexes. Instead, she was being asked to just… holler. It was weird, but it made a kind of sense. This was like learning how to throw a properly loaded jab or re-chambering a roundhouse kick. You had to get the basics down before you did anything else.

So, she set her feet, took a deep gulp of air, and asserted herself.

**_SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE._ **

(Oliver Queen’s POV)

Holy fucking shit that was loud. Like, WOW. Good thing Cisco had prevailed upon them all to wear earbuds. He was pretty sure that if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t be able to fire even a kid’s first crossbow for a month.

There were skills he wished to be able to match Laurel in, things he knew he could do and should do to become that which his city and the world needed. But this? This was a skill that he did not want. Laurel had it, and together, they would learn how to refine it. He also knew that he didn’t want to stay in Central City for too much longer. For one, the city already had a hero of the 1st order in the Flash, and he did not want people to begin to think the Green Arrow and Black Canary were bigfooting the Scarlet Speedster.

Besides that, they had labs as good as the one here in Central City back home, and Oliver was beginning to realize that they needed to get back. Tempest was still looming, and while he was relatively confident that the SCPD could handle some of the smaller crime that he and Laurel dealt with on patrol, he didn’t want to test that particular theory any longer than he absolutely had to. Besides, the people of Starling City needed to know they could rely on SOME form of justice until the police force was capable of doing their job for them. And he hoped, that day was coming eventually.

He had heard stories, over cold beers and home-cooked meals with both Ted Grant and Ben Turner, about heroes who were never able to stop. They had kept going when their bodies broke and their spirits crumbled because there wasn’t a part of them that wasn’t the vigilante anymore. He didn’t want that for himself, and he’d rather be stabbed in the gut with a rusty katana than have that for Laurel.

They had suffered enough being apart from each other for 5 years. He had been in hell on Yeon-Og, and Lady Shiva’s training was brutal enough that he could imagine that Laurel felt like she was close enough to that. Right now, as she kept screaming and everything around him rattled, he was coming up with ideas. Maybe vocal scales would work to refine this. But they’d talk more about it on the way back home.

Right now, as sad as he was to admit it, they’d have to take their leave.

(Laurel Lance’s POV)

She saw him, and what was in his eyes, and knew. They had to leave. It had been 36 hours. They would have stayed longer if there had been a fight, an enemy the Flash couldn’t beat but that they could. But since there hadn’t been, and she had just gotten this scream instead, they had to return. As much as she loved the sunny streets of this place, and the lighter tone about everything, she could not have lived with herself if she let the criminals in her city think that the Green Arrow and Black Canary had given up.

Until the city could stand on its two feet, and protect itself, Oliver and Laurel would do the job for it. But to do that, they had to be back home. They had to be in the Glades, and Little Vietnam, and all the other neighborhoods that needed them to stand for justice.

So, letting out one last final scream, she hugged Barry and Cisco tightly and told them they were leaving. Instantly, they understood. Barry even, and it was odd to know that he could DO that, offered to run them to the city limits but they instead reminded him they had flown via a private jet and that was the safest way to return.

Nodding their heads, thanking Team Flash for what they had done, the Green Arrow and Black Canary made their way back to Starling City. Their home had many miles to go before any of them could rest, and as long as they could still say that, they still had to fight.

**_Back in Starling City, at Wildcat Kickboxing and Muay Thai in the Glades……._ **

\------------------------------------------

(Ted Grant’s POV)

Laurel had told him what had happened to her. She, suddenly, could scream loud enough to fell the Columbia Center or even the Space Needle. That was….. concerning.

Sooner or later, and it was looking like it would be sooner, he’d have to tell her who her mom was. That, and the truth of her cry, was not something he was looking forward to.

But he had to. The city needed a completely informed Black Canary, and the idea that her mother had done this a lifetime ago would be something she’d need to know.

Because, as he saw Roy Harper finish his live sparring, things were about to get a lot more complicated. Roy was ready, at least physically.

“You’re ready. Meet me at this location. We’ll see if you can become what this city needs you to become.”

Ted hoped he was right and wasn’t sending another kid down the wrong path.


	4. Arsenal

**_Outside the entrance to the Quiver……._ **

\----------------------------------------------------------------

(Roy Harper’s POV)

One does not drop into the Green Arrow and Black Canary’s lair unprepared. It’s a sign of disrespect. And if you want to join their mission, and protect the city alongside them, the absolute last thing you would ever want to consider doing is disrespecting the two toughest people in the city bar none. But it wasn’t their toughness that drew him to them. If toughness was all that mattered, he could have hung around the Glades and done some of this himself.

He wanted to help because the city loved them. He had seen the murals, the footage of the Black Canary jumping rope with little kids for a school fundraiser, and the Green Arrow beating an entire bar in a charity game of darts. To the people in this city, they were special. They were heroes, and people like that were in short supply here. No one stayed here, he knew.

In his bag, there was a gi, his black belt in taekwondo, his yellow lenço in capoeira, a recurve bow he had bought from a local sporting goods store, and a change of clothes. He didn’t know what he was about to be doing, but if there was a chance that he might be sparring today, he wanted to be ready.

Meeting the Green Arrow and the Black Canary was all he wanted since he decided he wanted to save his city. He was ready for ANYTHING.

**_Inside the Quiver……._ **

\-----------------------------------------

(Laurel Lance’s POV)

After they had returned from Central City, Laurel had ordered a pizza from Mario’s, ate it, and then fell right asleep. The stress, and the exhaustion that came with it, meant she hadn’t even done her usual nighttime training regimen. So, when she walked into the Quiver today, she was keyed up. She needed to hit something.

Honestly, if not for the fact that Ted had told her what he was planning, she would have trekked over to Wildcat Muay Thai and Kickboxing and seen if she couldn’t get some sparring in. Fighting was a part of her life now, in a way that she couldn’t have anticipated but didn’t want to give up. Five years training under Lady Shiva and Ricardo Diaz, along with whatever masters of specific arts Shiva and Diaz brought to their dojo, meant she had as good a claim as any to being the best martial artist in the world. Even if logical prudence meant she wouldn’t make the claim, it was nice to know it was still there. Because she needed it. Oliver needed it. This team needed all the skills they could muster because saving Starling City was a long, slow, and painful job.

Her city had become, and she didn’t know why she didn’t see it sooner, a place where crime fed on itself like a petri dish. One stick-up man became 10. Gangs saw this place as a fertile ground, which saddened her because they were about the only people that did.

This place could be better, could be the jewel of the West Coast to rival Coast City or Los Angeles. She knew it in her bones.

And if this Roy Harper wanted to help, wanted to do the work that all the city knew still needed doing, she would welcome him. She knew Oliver would too.

They had talked about this so many times, over so many nights, ever since Oliver and Laurel found out about the other timeline. He had promised he would not be that man, would not be taciturn and stoic to those who loved him. Sure, on the street he had to be intimidating. Criminals did not respond well to kind words.

“But I love you, Laurel,” he said with tears in his eyes. “The thought of a version of me, ANY version of me, treating you the way I did is disgusting. Now, I won’t do it. I love you. I will tell the world. But I want you to never forget, to never doubt it.”

She wouldn’t.

(Oliver Queen’s POV)

He knew that what he was doing as the Green Arrow, the thing he was making himself into, needed to be cast apart from Oliver Queen. He could see that he would descend fully into madness if he didn’t remind himself of his father’s mission to love the city. He knew that he had in the old timeline. Making sure that didn’t happen was vital to him. It was part of why he went to the parts of the city no one would expect Oliver Queen to be caught dead in. Whenever he got asked about this, he explained it simply and with a maximum of emotion.

“Dad died, on a boat in the Yellow Sea, and the last thing he asked me to do was to love my city, and correct what he hadn't been able to stop. It would be dishonoring everything he sacrificed, and all that I went through, if I didn’t find more of my city than just the parts everyone expects me to go. I need to be a true resident of my city, not just someone who flies in on a helicopter twice a month.”

He didn’t want to be some god from on high who didn’t care about your smaller problems. He and Laurel agreed that to save the city, they needed to be everyone’s hero. People should feel like they could trust them, not that you didn’t even know they lived here because they were barely around. So, they made it a point to do those sorts of things. They walked kids home from after school programs, gave directions, and were generally working on being the sort of people you’d go to for trouble.

But now, he was auditioning a protégé. Just saying that out loud felt weird. He remembered bits and pieces of that old timeline, so he hoped it was Roy. He had never really done right by him. It was a year-and-a-half of teaching Roy, and most of that was spent dealing with the aftereffects of that damn serum. With that gone, he wanted the chance to make things right, to make an actual archer. He knew his decisions had been wrong the last time and wanted to be better.

So, as he put on his suit and his bow, he made a promise to himself. He would be what Roy Harper needed.

This duo he had built with Laurel would become a trio. They could save the city, all three of them.

**_Meanwhile, in a sniper’s nest across the street from the Quiver……_ **

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(????’s POV)

It had been days waiting for her role model to return. The man she wanted to partner with, to emulate, had been gone and no one knew where. It was, honestly, a confusing thing. But it didn’t matter. All the Green Arrow needed to know was that she existed, and everything would be ok. She would be his partner, not that silly little bird he was hanging around with now.

There was NOTHING, not one thing at all, that she couldn’t do as well as whoever was beneath that ridiculous pajama set. She could fight. Master Hwa Rang Ree had insured she could when the depths of her plan had been explained. She had been shooting her recurve bow since grade school, so she knew she could shoot on par with the Green Arrow. She even was a gymnast, so if he needed someone to flip around him while he fired, she could do that. There was NOTHING she couldn’t be for him.

He didn’t need a new protégé or a partner like that silly little bird. She wouldn’t know what hit her. That’s why she was up here, after all, with an arrowhead loaded with buckshot and GHB in equal measure. She wanted the woman who was stealing her dream, her destiny, to feel pain and not remember a second of it. And then, she would become the Green Arrow’s partner, and things would be right.

“Evelyn Sharp, a.k.a. Arrowette. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Green Arrow.”

It felt so much like right she could barely stand it.

**_Back inside the Quiver……_ **

\-----------------------------------------

(Oliver Queen’s POV)

He wouldn’t take the hood off, and neither would Laurel. If Roy Harper wanted to be a part of this, part of the force of justice and hope that they were building, he would have to earn the right to know who was under the hoods and behind the masks. Their secret identities were things they kept close to the vest, and for very good reason. The Green Arrow and the Black Canary needed to be what they were, symbols of the city’s promise and potential. If they were just Oliver Queen and Laurel Lance, there was always the chance that they would be mocked and ignored. The people they were trying to save, the city they were trying to drag back from the brink by their fingernails, needed to believe in something unimpeachable. And a person, no matter how personally honorable, could never be thought of in that way.

But the Green Arrow and the Black Canary? The people of Starling could rest knowing they couldn’t be bought, couldn’t be convinced to turn their back on their mission. So, as much as he held a personal fondness for the idea of what Roy Harper could mean to this mission, he could not ever forget that vow he had made to Laurel, and himself. This city would be saved. He would not stop, could not rest until he knew that mission was fulfilled.

This is a solemn thing they’re doing, a great responsibility. If Roy couldn’t understand that, couldn’t treat it with the respect it deserved, they’d have to let him go.

As much as it hurt.

(Roy Harper’s POV)

Now, this…. **THIS** was a dojo. Even as he was just glancing around, he could tell why it was that the Green Arrow and Black Canary relied on a place like this to be the sharpest they could be. There were so many striking dummies it felt like a warehouse, and enough targets to make even an Olympic archer drool in anticipation. But what he was noticing, even as everyone stared at him like the party crasher he probably was, is how warm it all felt. How warm HE felt.

This was a big warehouse, and it had to be to hold all the things and supplies that were in here. But, despite all that, it didn’t feel cold or antiseptic. It felt joyous in here, like a place where people were doing their best jobs and living their best lives. But even more than that, this was a place that held deep respect in it. Whoever the Green Arrow and Black Canary were, Roy could instantly tell that they were people who commanded respect and love. It honestly felt like a family, and he would have done just about anything to be a part of a family.

His mother was constantly in and out of rehab facilities, and his father had disappeared lifetimes ago doing god knows what all over hell’s half-acre. The truth was, he didn’t have a family. So, he decided he’d get one now.

Knowing what he had to do, he set his feet and introduced himself.

“Hello, Green Arrow. My name is Roy Harper. Would you teach me?”

(Laurel Lance’s POV)

She knew Oliver needed this. He had all this natural ability to be a leader, someone who could convince people to do what needed doing even though it wasn’t always easy. Yet, he had never conceived of using that skill on her. They were a partnership, two true equals who filled in the other halves of their own skills. Trying to force either of them to do something, when you both agreed it had to be done regardless, seemed reckless. But, if what Barry had said was true, Oliver would be thinking about making sure that when a real crisis came, he could lead a team of like-minded heroes to stop it.

If preparing himself for something as massive as that meant he needed to start small, with someone who had the will but not the talent to help save their city, she understood that. Besides, as she glanced at Ted Grant who was slipping on the focus mitts and a body pad for what she knew was their twice-daily sparring sessions based on mastering her taekwondo forms while also adding in some more hapkido forms to get herself to a 3rd-degree black belt in the art, she needed to train. If Oliver needed to learn how to lead, she needed to be the best she could be. And while she trained, she would think. Because it felt like there was something she was missing. The city was too quiet, just drug dealers and gang initiations.

As she had learned last year, quiet was never a good thing.

**_A few minutes later in the Quiver……._ **

\------------------------------------------------------------

(Roy Harper’s POV)

He had fought in Ted Grant’s presence before. It was always a little intimidating because he knew who Ted was and what he had done. Even before Ted admitted he was Wildcat; Ted was the first American brave enough to challenge a Thai fighter in Muay Thai. Imagine that. Imagine what that must have felt like, to stand there and know you were not just representing yourself, or your city. You were representing every kickboxer in an entire country, knowing that if you failed there would be no other chance for anyone to be in your position for a decade. 

But this? This was different.

For one, he wasn’t fighting an opponent whose face he could even see. Even now, after he had answered every question everyone in this room had, the Green Arrow kept his hood up. It made hitting him difficult, but it had been agreed that they were sparring each other anyway. The point was to see if Roy had the skills to not be a liability out there in the field, not to see if he could defeat the Green Arrow.

The other thing was that, while this sparring session was going on, there was a hub of activity that didn’t surround them at all. He struggled to remember everyone’s names, but he knew that their tech guy and the other trainer were working with whoever the Black Canary was. She wasn’t directly looking at him and the Green Arrow, but she did seem interested.

Finally, though, he yielded. The sparring was done, for now.

(Oliver Queen’s POV)

Roy was ready. And, with a glance and a returned nod, so were he and Laurel.

Flipping his hood up, he smiled when Roy’s jaw hit the floor.

“I’m Oliver Queen.”

(Laurel Lance’s POV)

“And I’m Laurel Lance. Welcome aboard.”


	5. Hunting Parties

**_At the Quiver……_ **

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(John Diggle’s POV)

He had grown up in the Central District as a kid. This was his city, and he always knew it would be. So, when Oliver Queen and Laurel Lance told him what they were doing, he immediately understood. Because his city was dying.

He had gone off to war after graduating from Abraham Lincoln High School, and he knew it then. But he hoped that by the time he came back, things would change. He went through three tours in Afghanistan, learned to speak Arabic and conversational Pashtun in addition to French and Spanish, and met the love of his life there. But it was still WAR. It did not make any sense to him, could not make any sense to him, that when he finally returned home his city was worse than some of the places he had been while at war. 

This could not be allowed to continue. But one man could not do it by himself. No matter how skilled, or how many resources he could bring to bear, that man would invariably be destroyed. It was just the way of Starling City. But and this was the difference between him and the Merlyns, he never wanted to stop hoping it wouldn’t always be.

So, when Oliver and Laurel explained what they wanted to be, he understood. Men, and women, could be destroyed. But what the Green Arrow and Black Canary were, the ideals of hope and justice they stood for against the darkness, those could never be really taken away.

And it made him proud, and feel useful in a way he hadn’t since the ‘Stan, to know they needed a man like him. He had resources in the uncorrupted world of law enforcement, people who would gladly provide him with intel and numbers to make sure the true criminals of Starling City paid for their crimes. Speaking of which, weren’t Oliver, Laurel, and this new guy Roy Harper going to do something about that?

(Laurel Lance’s POV)

Tonight, they were going hunting. When Oliver had come back from a private conversation with Roy Harper, he had mentioned to her that their newest partner had an idea. Tempest was still there, still, in the background, they all knew.

And then Roy came up with it. “What we need is a statement of intent, a promise that we’re not done rooting out injustice. Those rich assholes in Society Hill and Broadmoor probably think we’ve given up making them pay for what they’ve taken from the city. Let’s show them they’re wrong.”

It was dangerous and brilliant. Dangerous because it required Oliver, Laurel, and Roy to raid a highly guarded high-society dinner and personally confront people who could bankroll actual death squads should they get the idea to do so.

But brilliant because she realized they had let the city’s puppet-masters and power-brokers sleep in, and there was a real chance they were converting their plans to bankrupt the city to things they thought wouldn’t be seen. So, tonight, they would show those who were bleeding the city dry one ounce at a time that the Green Arrow and Black Canary weren’t done with them.

Nowhere close. But before they went anywhere, they had to get changed. And Roy had to get fitted for his suit and get a codename.

(Roy Harper’s POV)

There were things about his audition, and make no mistake that’s EXACTLY what it was, to be the Green Arrow’s protégé that always struck Roy Harper as a little odd. One of them was showing its face right now. He had to submit measurements, detailed measurements. He didn’t know why but as he stood in front of what looked like a computerized version of a tailor, he was beginning to get the idea. This was a part of what being a hero was. When he went out of this warehouse, Roy Harper had to stay behind. He couldn’t be what the Glades needed, what the city needed, as himself. And to do that, he needed to be a representation of something else. And that suit being made was where it began.

For Oliver and Laurel, their suits were brighter colors and that’s what it needed to be. The light had been leeched out of this city over years and was almost gone now. So, if the Green Arrow and Black Canary wore bright colors, it was to remind people there was still LIGHT here. The city wasn’t so far gone it couldn’t come back. So, he would represent that too.

So, as he watched this Curtis Holt make his suit, he began to look around. Here he could still be, if just for a little while longer, Roy Harper. And then, just out of the corner of his eye, he saw it. Growing up in the Glades meant that he was street-wise. The life he had led made sure he would have to be. You didn’t survive there if you didn’t know how to see things before they were there.

So, as he waited for Curtis to finish his suit, he couldn’t help but glance at the security camera pointing towards the street. His blood chilled. His eyes opened wide. He didn’t know people’s names yet, though. So, he grabbed the first person he could find and told them what he saw.

“There’s someone across the street and they want to shoot whoever comes out first.”

(Ben Turner’s POV)

He had been planning on working with Oliver on some of the rarer Tang Soo Do and Black Tiger Fist forms he had found. This city, for whatever else you could say about it, would always be a place where anyone who wanted to do what they were doing would have to be a world-class fighter. There was just, simply, no way around it. The city’s darkness, and its prominent place near the Pacific Ocean, meant that it had become a haven for people who wanted to fight and fight well. Strangely, it also meant that you never had to worry about guns. The people who used guns, who knew that a bullet would beat kung-fu, were not welcome in this town. In a sign of the only honor, people had left here, the criminals didn’t even allow it.

But to live in a place like this, and be a symbol of what the city would need, you were expected to be skilled. Whether you were fluid and sensual like Laurel or focused and powerful like Oliver, there was no way around it. Living here meant you got used to fighting.

And then this new kid, this Roy Harper, showed him something and his blood chilled like permafrost.

He knew it wasn’t a sniper rifle. Anyone crazy enough to bring something like that into Starling City was basically signing their own death warrant. If he had to guess, someone was taking offense to the idea that the Green Arrow was the best archer in the city, and maybe even in the world. And to do it, they were hunting him. Not his team, not the people who had helped him hobble Tempest and stop the Undertaking. Just the Green Arrow. It was…. tactically unsound. 

The Black Canary hadn’t declared herself the best martial artist in the world, even though people KNEW she had a good claim to it. That just wasn’t who Laurel was. Her humility, more so than her facility with hook kicks and cyclone elbows, was her greatest strength. But even then, all Laurel could lay claim to was being an excellent hand-to-hand fighter. She wasn’t an archer in her bones like Oliver was, hadn’t learned how to tell when someone was firing in a noisy environment as he had. Her senses simply weren’t tuned to that level of precision.

But if you were firing an arrow at the Green Arrow’s partner, you’d have to know he’d come after you. And no matter how good you might think you are; the Green Arrow is becoming noticed as a real threat to the city’s criminal element. But if you were doing it because you wanted to prove yourself to him, show him you’re worthy, that’s a whole different thing.

Sighing, the former Bronze Tiger knew what he had to do.

“Get Oliver and Laurel over here, Mr. Harper. Someone is waiting for us and we must see to it we give them a warm welcome.”

**_A few minutes later…._ **

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(Oliver Queen’s POV)

He knew how to live off the land, to track an enemy, and to do all the things that one needed to know to do when you were trapped on a deserted island for 5 years. A lot of that knowledge, though, was born from anger and fury. When figuring out how to escape into the forest, and avoid mines, is the difference between life and death you tend to become pretty good at learning, and annoyed you even must.

But for this, for what he was about to do, he needed to be perfectly serene. Losing his temper, which right now was burning hot enough to be compared to a volcano, would not do him justice. And if Ben Turner was right, and he was not the target but Laurel was, becoming enraged would also make the job of making sure she didn’t get shot harder than it needed to be. He hadn’t been able to protect her during her five years training with the most brilliant, and brutal, martial artist the world has ever known. He could now, though.

Logically, he knew she didn’t need it. After five years of training with Shiva, Laurel could more than likely take out an entire battalion of Army Rangers using just her elbows and knees. She was the most beautiful fighter he had ever seen because she was the most terrifying. But there were things she could not do, skills she had not yet learned or mastered. And those were the things he could protect her from.

And at this moment in time, the skill he was the proudest of was that he knew exactly what you needed for just about every type of long-distance archery shot in the book.

People didn’t understand how HARD being an archer was. It isn’t always just showing up, shooting a fantastically beautiful shot, and then leaving again. You must judge for just about every contingency. Add to that the complex mathematical equations he did every single time he drew back his bow release and fired, and he knew that doing what he did required a lot more intelligence than people would have ever expected Oliver Queen to have. But as he had learned through five years of dark deep pain, sometimes making people think you were something you weren’t can be valuable.

So, as he walked outside as the Green Arrow to judge his target, he realized what he was looking at. This was 100 yards on a downward angle, on a typically rainy and damp night in Starling City. All things considered; it was a shot you’d fire if you were trying to prove something.

This wasn’t lethal. That wasn’t the point. Someone, and he didn’t know why was auditioning.

Normally, he would have amused and maybe even been flattered. But tonight? Tonight, of all nights, the Green Arrow did not want anyone else. He knew, in his soul, that his team was perfection. Laurel and Roy were the only other partners he could need.

So, he left, getting on his black-and-green Suzuki Hayabusa. He had a declaration of war to make.

(Evelyn Sharp’s POV)

_HOW DARE HE?_

All she was doing was proving that she could be more than what the silly little bird was to him. And he doesn’t even respond? He doesn’t even pay her any mind?

Ok. She would MAKE him listen.

**_At the Starling City Four Seasons……_ **

\----------------------------------------------------

(Oliver Queen’s POV)

At times like this, he was happy that the Green Arrow routinely took half of his patrol time to cover some of the Asian markets in the Glades and Little Vietnam. It wasn’t just that he wanted to give EVERYONE in the city the sense that the Green Arrow cared about their problems, too. On this, he freely admitted, he was following the example of the Flash. He had heard Barry talking with Laurel about how the key to really saving the city was to make sure that everyone, from hot dog vendor on the Easley Bridge to the police commissioner, could count on you. That idea had stuck with him and seemed more and more appealing with time.

His city, the city he and Laurel were going to save, was suffering from several debts. But the biggest one was hope. No one believed in anything anymore. But if the Green Arrow showed up night after night to make sure no one vandalized the only Persian restaurant in town with anti-Muslim graffiti, or the Black Canary volunteered at a local shelter for battered women, that would be the start of saving the city in a way that didn’t require the skills both had suffered to master. They were the city’s true protectors; in ways, the police couldn’t be and the government didn’t want to be.

And in return for that honest help, given without conditions, the Glades and the rest of the city made an unspoken deal: If we hear about something, we’ll let the Green Arrow and Black Canary know before the police do. That deal was why they were here.

One of the kitchen staff had informed Oliver that there were a whole gaggle of rich people having a catered dinner party, and wouldn’t it be nice if they suddenly felt a little bit of fear for once?

He wanted to be careful about things like this because if these were people trying to do some good, the Green Arrow showing up at your dinner and terrifying you into compliance would be bad.

So, he had Curtis do some investigating, and it turned out that this was an actual Tempest meeting. Who oversaw this with the Merlyns in federal prison? And why did any of them think they were going to get away with running it under their noses?

There were a lot of questions. Only seemed right to get them all answered.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was around the soup course when it all went bad. The city fathers, and the heads of what was left of Tempest, were sitting around discussing their city. They had come to make new plans to bleed the Glades dry and reconstruct a new and better city from the ashes. But what they weren’t worried about were the Green Arrow and Black Canary. From everything they had heard, the Emerald Archer and his beautiful bird had lost the taste for vast conspiracies. They were just…. arresting low-threat criminals. And if that was the case, they would let them continue to operate. What harm could they do to the things, and to the people, that truly mattered?

So, when the lights went out, no one was thinking anything but that the power had gone out. It was the indolence of impossible wealth. Nothing could threaten their _bank balances_ , so nothing threatened **them**. But their highly-paid security was grabbing for nightsticks, collapsible canes, or whatever they could think of. Maybe it was a copycat, who thought the limits that the Green Arrow placed on himself were too inflexible. And then, standing in the middle of the table, all the security guards saw them. The Green Arrow, with an arrow aimed and ready to fire. And the Black Canary in a kung-fu stance right next to him.

And then the Green Arrow spoke.

(Oliver Queen’s POV)

He hoped, even though he knew it wouldn’t stick, that he would only have ever to say this once.

“I let you sleep. The Black Canary let you sleep. Because, for reasons beggaring for understanding, we believed you would have seen the error of your ways. We know now that is not the case. Your works, cruel and vicious as they are, will be stopped. From this day until you are in federal prisons for your crimes against this country, and this city, you should not sleep as comfortably as you have. You should wonder, every second of every day, if this is the moment. You should wonder if this is the time when all your dreams and goals, everything your greed has turned you into, will crumble like sand at your feet. You will drain Starling City no more.”

And then, just like that, he leaves. Hopefully, the message has been sent.

**_Meanwhile, at the Vanishing Point……_ **

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(Mar Novu’s POV)

The Speed Force had always taken, he supposed, a far more hopeful view of everything that would lead up to the Crisis than he did. So, when he felt that pull in the chest that let him know a timeline had been changed, he knew things would be different. The Flash, the paragon of love, had figured out how to defy one of his pronouncements. And in doing so, he had revived the paragons of the two virtues humanity had not had represented in the last Crisis. Oliver Jonas Queen, the paragon of willpower. A man who kept fighting, kept going, even when all he had was lost to him. And Dinah Laurel Lance, the paragon of justice. She saw crime as a thing to be rehabilitated, not a blight to be destroyed. The fact that neither of them was there meant the work of the paragons was…. incomplete.

He hoped now, that when the Crisis came, they were better prepared for the presence of the Green Arrow and the Black Canary.


	6. Cat's Cradle

**_At Slabside Heights Federal Prison……_ **

\---------------------------------------------

(Katherine Kane-Merlyn’s POV)

They had tried to get her money, resources, and contacts. And while the FBI thought they had done it all, there were still things and people they had not discovered. And, as she practiced her morning meditations in her cell, she was beginning to put together a plan to use those resources to enact a certain kind of revenge.

She knew, from the times she and her father had been placed together to prepare for their defense on those wholly ridiculous terrorism charges, that her father had put together a personal punishment for the Green Arrow. This Komodo, after all, was a hired bow. A tremendous one, truly the equal of both her father and the Green Arrow, but a hired bow. He had been given his instructions and had it explained to him that he was to make the Green Arrow feel maximum pain before destroying the Emerald Archer. But for the Black Canary, Katherine got a distinct idea that wasn’t going to be good enough.

There were no words for how she had felt when she had awoken and found herself tied hand-and-foot with cables and drug through the prison like a common animal, like one of THEM. She had known that the city that the Green Arrow and Black Canary wanted so deeply to save was rife with criminality and evil. It was why Tempest, elegant in its design and scalpel-esque in its precision, was so necessary. There was no reason, no rhyme that she could live with, that a place like this deserved to be saved from itself.

And yet, the Black Canary had stopped the Undertaking. Now, all that was left was the backup plan of slowly bleeding the Glades dry of resources and public support. That bothered her, but not nearly as much as knowing that she had been bested in a fair duel of martial arts by someone. No matter. The Phantom may be off the board, but it would not be that way for long.

But while she was forced to stay here, that did not mean the Black Canary needed to feel free. Many ninjas would gladly take money to be the one to break the heroine of Starling City, and she knew just where to begin.

**_Meanwhile, at the Quiver……_ **

\-----------------------------------------------------

(Laurel Lance’s POV)

There were many great things she had learned during her five years of training at Lady Shiva’s private dojo in Indonesia. She had mastered martial arts forms both well-known and deeply obscure and developed a style that was flowing and elegant while never sacrificing power for grace. But most importantly, she had found her soul there. It would not have been a stretch for her to say that the Laurel who wandered into Lady Shiva’s dojo did not truly know what she wanted to do with her life. But now she did. She would, when her and Oliver’s watches over the city were done, continue to train and teach martial arts to those who wanted to see justice done. Oliver and her as old masters, somewhere in a quiet forest teaching the ways of kung-fu and muay thai? It felt so good, so like what she had dreamed of having, that it almost hurt to think about.

At this moment, though, she was not thinking of anything with that terrifically high level of depth. What she was thanking Shiva for teaching her was the value of a sparring partner. It was, as she remembered from her time there, very difficult to find a good one. They had to be skilled enough to provide a good challenge, but not so good that they sought to be the one winning all of the time. It was a particularly difficult balancing act to handle.

Ted was not someone she could spar with any longer. He was like family to her, and she couldn’t possibly live with herself if she hurt him. Ben Turner wasn’t even on the table, as he was Oliver Queen’s personal teacher and his own sparring partner. Again, she hadn’t been able to think she could find anyone.

And then, her archery teacher Nyssa Raatko had stepped into that breach. She had explained, sheepishly over Saudi-style coffee at a local restaurant, that she had been trained by several martial arts masters to supplement her archery knowledge. Further, in Cambridge-accented English befitting her teaching at fine European institutions, she requested to further help Laurel by being a sparring partner for her.

“Before I had heard of you, Miss Lance, I knew what I would be. And I found that thought to be personally distasteful. If I can ever repay that massive debt, things like helping you keep your skills sharp would be just the beginning of that.”

And today, after just the first time sparring, she knew Nyssa had undersold herself dramatically. Because this wasn’t like fighting the Phantom, the only fair comparison she could make for a martial artist near her skill level. It was WORSE.

Laurel was justly proud of her skills as a kung-fu practitioner, karate-ka, and taekwondo player in addition to the rarer martial masteries she had developed. Five years of training with Lady Shiva and Ricardo Diaz had made her confident in her own abilities, although never arrogant about them. So, she thought of herself as a top-drawer martial artist. She wasn’t so foolishly prideful as to compare herself to Lady Shiva. Even when Shiva held back, there was no comparison. No one thought there would be. But the Phantom, on the other hand, was close enough that she could compare what she was to herself. And with that knowledge in mind, Laurel could freely admit that she now knew what it was like to fight herself.

Touching Nyssa had been as hard as landing blows on Shiva had been, except this was always done with a smile on her face. Laurel didn’t think Shiva was entirely aware that one could make the muscles in their face form a smile. By contrast, this Nyssa Raatko seemed to find joy in sparring, in using forms of kung-fu she could only pick up on because Shiva had translated the old books and then taught the forms to her by vocal command. It had taken every block and counter she remembered to keep things at a stalemate, and when the 20-minute timer Ted Grant had sent zeroed out she felt two things she didn’t think she could feel anymore. Exhaustion, and supreme relief.

THIS was what it meant to be pushed to her limits. She had not been able to find this feeling since she had left Indonesia, and to know it again felt like a puzzle piece locking into place.

So, as she drank from a post-workout shake and staggered over to the cold tub Curtis Holt had put in for both the Green Arrow and Black Canary to use, Laurel smiled fully. Tonight, she would go out on patrol. And she would be obsidian-sharp, because of her friend Nyssa Raatko. Woe betides the criminals of this city.

**_At the Queen Mansion……._ **

\-------------------------------------------------------------

(Thea Queen’s POV)

Ever since Oliver went on that spiritual retreat, he was strangely Zen. There weren’t words for it other than that. It was too much. Sure, when he came back from the island, he had changed. But she expected this. Five years on a deserted island off the shore of the Korean peninsula would change anyone. For one, he had come back and not shown any interest at all in any woman besides Laurel. Between the private airfield at the airport and the mansion, there had been no less than 8 women who had slipped him their numbers and he hadn’t cared. All he could do was talk with Laurel like she was his whole world in a way she hadn’t been before the island. Secondly, he spoke perfect Korean and sang and danced with her to the K-Pop music she liked. That one made sense, though. He had been on an island for 5 years off of the Korean peninsula. Learning a language was something she expected to happen.

But now? It was like a monk had come and inhabited Oliver. He was unfailingly polite, but not in that “butter won’t melt in my mouth” kind of polite that he had mastered when he was in real trouble. No, this was kind. He hugged Raisa, and mom, and her more often than he ever had. He genuinely cared about them and took interest in what they were doing whenever he wasn’t out for hours at night.

But it was that last thing that kept haunting her. Where was he going? What was he doing?

So, while Oliver ate his breakfast of a 3 egg-white omelet and some orange juice, Thea snuck into his room to get answers. If something terrible was happening to her older brother, she deserved to know about all of it. He had been gone from her life and had been unable to be there for her as she grew into a young woman. She was not going to lose him now.

So, as she walked up into his room, she was prepared for just about anything. But what she saw rattled her to her bones.

The suit of the Green Arrow, the suit that had existed the night he stopped the Undertaking, was just… laying on her brother’s bed. It took her back a minute, back to all those times she had made fun of the Green Arrow for thinking he could change the city. What did it say about her that she had mocked her own family, her own brother?

Not knowing what else to do, she hollered.

(Oliver Queen’s POV)

Raisa’s breakfasts were true comfort for him. Five years sleeping on rocks, or in neon-lit futons in the shadows and dark corridors of Seoul and Incheon, had made it so that he held on to those little memories in his mind and gave them perhaps more significance than they needed. And now that he was home, he had been working out which of those memories were truly rich and which were just because he needed some touchstone upon which his humanity could rest.

Having breakfast in his home, with no worries about being shot or being forced to be a spy or an assassin, was one of those memories he was happy to be right about. He treasured that Slade and Shado had been brought into his life and that they had shown him what purpose and honor could be. But there would always be a place for relaxation. And here, with the sun shining on a verdant green lawn and everyone who mattered to him content in their lives, he knew he had found it.

And then he heard the scream. Raisa did too, and so did his mother. But he knew the flavor of that scream. Thea had found out who he really was. This would have to be handled with grace and caring.

So, with a raised eyebrow and a glance towards his mother, Oliver left his breakfast and went up to check on his sister.

In her hands, she was holding his suit. Thank god his bow was still back at the Quiver, unstrung in its case. The thought of someone, anyone, picking up his bow and injuring themselves by firing it when they didn’t know what they were doing chilled him to his bones.

But as he looked at his baby sister, holding his suit like it was a holy shroud, she knew what she was thinking. It wasn’t like Laurel, who had understood the mission instantly because she had been going through her own crucible at the same time in Indonesia. Thea would need to have it explained to her.

And then his sister turned around and he knew he was wrong.

(Thea Queen’s POV)

Her older brother was the Green Arrow. While she was sitting on her bed, watching the Glades get evacuated, Oliver had been out there saving those people’s lives and fighting for their city. He had saved thousands of people from being the victim of a terrorist attack, and all she had thought to do was mock him. Well, that ended now.

So, she hugged him.

“You’ve been saving people’s lives. For a year and a half, that’s all you’ve been doing. Every night, you went out and saved someone’s life while I made fun of you. That’s going to change. I want to help you.”

(Oliver Queen’s POV)

He couldn’t resist her. She had always followed him, through anything and everything. So, he had to get her trained up. The thought of Thea wandering around after him not knowing what she’s doing was not welcome.

“You want to do this? Fine. After your schoolwork, you call Ted Grant at Wildcat Muay Thai and Kickboxing. Tell him I sent you. He’ll get you ready to fight. Then, when he says you’re ready, we’ll teach you how to fire a bow. But if you go below a B average, we’re done. If I hear you bragging that you know who the Green Arrow is, we’re done. This is solemn work I do. It’s not to be bragged about. It’s not a game. Do we understand each other?”

**_At Chuck Knox International Airport……_ **

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(Jade Nguyen’s POV)

She had been hired for many jobs, whether it was killing a popular political leader to foment unrest so that a dictator could take power or to simply be private security for a drug kingpin or sex trafficker. But this? This would be fun.

Katherine Kane-Merlyn had contacted her and asked her to defeat the Black Canary. The only rule was no guns. Apparently, here in Starling City, it was a city of martial artists. To do what she wanted to be done it would have to be with her bare hands.

Ok then. Let the games begin.


	7. The Connections

**_At Wildcat Muay Thai and Kickboxing in the Glades…….._ **

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Ben Turner’s POV)

Just the other week, Ben had signed a contract to be one of the three masters who taught here. Laurel was already there with kung-fu, Ted taught Muay-Thai, and it was now Ben who taught Taekwondo. If you were a martial artist in Starling City, it was becoming quite obvious that this was the place you needed to go. Ben was proud of being a teacher again, of passing down all the knowledge and skills he had garnered and continued to gain. He knew there were other people who you could go and train with, but they were franchises. You didn’t get the same personal touch you got here. Every student here, whether they were brought here by their parents to learn discipline or someone striving to become an Olympian, was intended to leave this gym being better than they had been when they got here.

And his newest student was no different. Thea Queen had been sent to him by one of his own students and her own brother. Apparently, to hear him tell it, she had put together who the Green Arrow was all on her own steam. Furthermore, she was a complete blank slate in terms of martial arts and so she needed his special ability to train someone up from nothing. He supposed that was what Master Otama had wanted for him, and the other 2 who could count themselves as his last students.

He had taught them all the ways to teach, to guide a student who wished to learn and be molded. It was only right, Ben knew, to use those skills in the service of something greater than yourself. Knowing this fact is why he called in someone special to help him, Nyssa Raatko. From everything Laurel had told him, Nyssa was an equal to the Phantom in combat and an equal to the Green Arrow as an archer.

If this Thea Queen wanted to become a proper hero, the Green Arrow would make sure she was as ready as she could be.

**_Meanwhile, at Starling City’s 1 st police precinct……._ **

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(Detective 1st Grade Quentin Lance’s POV)

There were good and bad things about living in a city where the criminals didn’t use guns out of a sense of honor. For one, there was almost no chance of one of those annoying gang shootouts people had in Coast City or Los Angeles. Every time he sat down on the couch after a hard day’s work he always felt terrible for those detectives who had to investigate one of those things, knowing there was a greater-than-normal chance innocent people would be caught in the crossfire. Here, he didn’t have to worry about that. The tradeoff of that is that he ended up spending a lot more time seeing victims who had beaten into various shades of ground meat than anyone would find particularly welcome.

But right now, he was suddenly looking around his office and noticing something he wished that young punk Curtis Holt hadn’t made him aware of. He liked Curtis, he genuinely did. But ever since he had been told that most of the cops in the 1st were on the take, it had been haunting him. Pike and Hilton, his first partner and his current sergeant, were on the take. He didn’t want to see it, know it was there, but there was something about the whole five years since Laurel went on that spiritual retreat and Oliver had been on that island that was gnawing at him. But he hadn’t been able to put a name to it, so he just let it fester. With hindsight, he was insulted he hadn’t seen it.

For one, Hilton had been steadily defunding the outreach programs in the precinct to the shopkeepers and the rest of the people in the Glades. He could remember when he first got here as a patrolman and how much pride he took in making sure that everyone on his route knew his name. And now, a little bit at a time, that sense of community had become shallow and brittle. Sure, he tried to keep it up but he was only a man. He couldn’t actually win a fight against City Hall.

The next thing was that they had almost no undercover cops here. It was weird, considering they were in a city with a really big crime problem, but they didn’t have a single undercover in the city’s Yakuza branch, or with the Triads. Before he had known the real reason, he had thought that the brass were just idiots. It wasn’t a crazy idea, honestly. Most of the time, and he heard this from his fellow officers in other departments and throughout the state, the brass was too worried about the numbers and not nearly enough about making sure there was good police work being done. But now that he knew what the truth was, it was worse. The brass hadn’t just been sightless and dumb. They had been deeply corrupt.

There needed to be people, people who could say what good police were, if they were going to save the city. It just couldn’t be the Green Arrow and Black Canary who were bringing Starling City out of darkness. It had to be the police too, but he couldn’t figure out how to do it.

And then, he saw it. If he wanted to really live up to the example his daughters believed he could still set, he knew what he’d have to do. Opening his Civil Services notebook, he circled the page for the next sergeant’s exam. But as he circled the date, he made a promise to himself.

“Commanding this squad. Teaching them. Keeping them out of harm's way. That's my last job. I don't want to go anywhere from there. I'm not looking for any more promotions. There would be nothing else I would ever want to do.”

**_At the Quiver……_ **

\-------------------------------------------

(Laurel Lance’s POV)

She was no fool. Ever since the Black Canary appeared on the scene, and had started saving lives and being a hero, there were two types of fans of hers. The first were kids, and both she and Ollie both made a special effort to be nice and kind to them. If this went the way they were hoping, these would be the future leaders of this city they were working to save. So if that meant jumping rope with the kids at local public schools to get her training, or teaching a low-stress martial arts class at the YMCA and YWCA, she’d do that. It was important, and besides, what kind of hero would you even be if you didn’t love kids?

But then there were the other types of fans. Those were teenage boys and girls. To them, the Black Canary and the Green Arrow were a whole different thing. They were the coolest and toughest fighters ever, literal demigods walking in their city. It was always fun, and a little amusing, to hear them talk about whether or not the Black Canary could beat some fictional hero from some movie franchise or if the Green Arrow was a better shot than Legolas. But she knew she couldn’t revel in that popularity without continuing to make sure she was worthy of it.

There weren’t many heroes here. It hurt to know that. But for the ones who could be heroes, whether they were athletes or finely-tuned martial artists, there was a greater responsibility. You had to be a role model.

Dragging one of the freestanding heavy bags into the middle of her training area, she bowed to the bag and then started working on her spinning kicks. Tonight, they were going out patrolling and bringing another member of Tempest to justice.

If they were going to become beloved, and be the light the city needed while they both worked to bring everyone out of the darkness, they needed to be ready.

(Roy Harper’s POV)

He didn’t want to be on probation. He wanted to be out there, fighting alongside the Green Arrow and Black Canary, but he understood the logic of it. The Green Arrow had earned multiple black belts, and had five years of survival training on a deserted island. The Black Canary was the foremost martial artist in the world, with black belts in more styles than Roy even knew existed. All he had, by contrast, was some general martial arts knowledge and some gumption. It wouldn’t be enough, quite yet. Ben Turner, though, said he would be ready before too long. But tonight? Knowing what they were going out to do, Roy ACHED to be out there with them.

These were the people who had let his home rot. Either by omission or commission, they had made that choice. And he wanted to make them pay heavily for it. But he knew that there could be no vengeance in what he was doing. There had been enough of that already. At its core, that’s what Tempest was. Some rich sociopath’s desire to hurt people because his wife had been taken from him.

But if he wanted to deliver justice, to be a force for good in this city, he needed to do what his trainers were asking of him. And that was a LOT.

Ben Turner and Ted Grant had wanted him to master several forms of kung-fu of the southern Chinese variety, because Laurel already moved with a grace that indicated her mastery of most of the Northern forms and no one in this group wanted any redundancy. But if that was all he needed to know, that would be one thing. But it wasn’t. In addition to those kung-fu lessons, he was expected to master muay boran, pencak silat, and keep up with his taekwondo. Also, to hear Ted tell it, Roy had already showed some really good skills with the meteor hammer and the kusari-fundo and he wanted him to do some training on that too.

But when it came to his other trainers, his facility as a martial artist was not important. Sure, they wanted him to be able to handle himself but that was clearly not all of it. John Diggle had been a bodyguard for years and an Army Ranger before that. If there was anyone who could read a room, and see who was a real threat and who wasn’t, it was Mr. Diggle. Knowing that he was being taught all of those skills, and could use them in both his regular life and his nighttime one, made him quite happy.

Nyssa Raatko, on the other hand, was a phenomenal teacher of archery. She had taken one look at him and decided he would shoot with a classically built composite reflex bow. Just as quickly, she had taken one look at the recurve bow he had bought from that sporting goods store and had Curtis Holt crush it while muttering curses in Arabic. Apparently, from what he had been able to put together, the craftsmanship on this bow would not have been suitable for an infant and how dare people sell this in a city where the Green Arrow lives.

Over the time since he had been told he would be on probation Nyssa had taught him how to aim and lead his target and how to quickly draw an arrow and fire it. He was pleased that the Green Arrow, the unassailable samurai of archery, asked for that quick-draw lesson to be given to him privately.

It was dizzying all of the knowledge that was filling his mind. But more than that, it made him prouder of what Oliver and Laurel had submitted themselves to be. To learn all of this, to know this many martial arts and be this skilled with a bow, meant that their city was the most important thing to them. More than their happiness. More than relaxation.

He would, when they told him he was ready, set himself up to the same standard.

(Laurel Lance’s POV)

Her training was over, at least in the martial arts. All that was left to do was to further refine this power she had been given. It was a gift, a thing she had needed according to what that delightfully bubbly man back in Central City had told her.

“It’s your Canary Cry, Laurel. Starling City needs a singer, someone to croon about hope and love. You can be that for them.” Knowing that she had made friends who would look out for her, she sighed and walked into the soundproof room Curtis had made for her. Kneeling on the floor she glanced up and pressed a button. This was Oliver’s idea. She thought of this as a weapon, so why not train it like one? At various ranges existed clay targets, and she was practicing her scream until she could hit and knock down every single one before she closed her mouth. There was a part of her, larger than she liked, that didn’t want to train this. She just wanted to scream, and never stop. But she knew that was just a pipe-dream. After all, she didn’t want to use this power to injure anyone, not even the Merlyns.

As she had thought of it many times since the first time she had suited up as the Black Canary, she went out and fought alongside the Green Arrow to hurt not to injure. Hurting meant people went to the hospital for broken ribs, split lips, and broken noses. Those would hurt, and might make you reconsider the criminal life, but you could come back from them. Injuring was worse. Injuring was all the things you could do to the human body so that they would never be the same after. She knew what it was like for her when she thought Oliver was dead, and she wanted no one to suffer that pain anymore. So, she would keep drilling this cry until she could use it like a scalpel.

This city was in need of honor, and that meant it needed to have heroes in it who held themselves to a higher standard.

**_That Night, outside the Starling City Emerald Suites Hotel….._ **

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(The Green Arrow’s POV)

He hadn’t wanted to believe this when he heard it, but Curtis Holt and John Diggle had worked together to prove it was true. Apparently, Sheikh Nair bin Zain Al-Ayad had been using his $14 Billion net worth to buy up properties in the Glades and turn them into high-end condos and hotels to be rented out once the Glades was culled of the people who lived in it. But when the Black Canary and the Green Arrow stopped the plan, the sheikh was infuriated. So, he had personally flown in from Saudi Arabia with enough members of the Special Security Group of the Royal Saudi Navy to populate an entire hotel while he “negotiated” for the Undertaking to be restarted. And that’s just what he did.

He honestly wouldn’t have found it any less appalling, but then he and the Black Canary remembered that people at Wilson Children’s Hospital used this hotel for parents to rest when their kids were going through serious medical emergencies. These were people whom the world had placed an enormous weight on, and to think that now some rich sociopath was taking that away from them filled him with disgust.

So, here they were. One sheikh, a hotel’s full of highly trained operatives, and him and his love. The math, on the face of it, didn’t seem great. But just raw statistics didn’t tell the full story. Without tooting his own horn, he was a man who could out-shoot any archer he could think of and fight his way through an army of soldiers. He had been called a master in the martial arts by no less an authority than Lady Shiva, and had been trained personally by one of the last three students of the legendary Master Otama. He was prepared for a fight.

And if that wasn’t enough, he had the world’s best martial artist by his side. Someone who had more black belts, and had shown more mastery of skills, than anyone. If there was a master martial artist in the world, Laurel had either learned their techniques or had defeated them in open combat. Add to that her cry, and the new forms of stick-fighting she was learning every day, and it was safe to say you didn’t want to trifle with her.

So, he thought again, the math needed to be changed. One sheikh, a hotel full of highly trained operatives, and the Green Arrow and the Black Canary.

Sometimes, Math was fun.

\---------------------------------------------------------

So the Green Arrow and the Black Canary walked through the front door of the hotel and got to work. In the lobby, near where the continental breakfast was supposed to be set up, the Green Arrow fired an arrow through the phone bank so that no one was coming. These were people who wanted to harm their city, and didn’t care who else they had to put the weight on to make sure it happened. So, they both realized as they prepared themselves for battle, these were not people who needed to be treated with kid gloves. They had come into Starling City and poked a bear. It was now time for them to learn the bear bit back.

Floor by floor, they cleared them. Some were lucky and just got hit with tranquilizer or sleeping-gas arrows. The unlucky ones got drilled with hook and roundhouse kicks, or had their heads slammed through doors. Finally, after making it to the penthouse, the Green Arrow glanced at the Black Canary before drawing and firing a C4-loaded arrow towards the penthouse. Quickly, they fired a cable arrow to tie the sheikh to his steel bedposts.

Instructing Curtis to call the FBI and the US Attorney’s office, the Green Arrow and the Black Canary walked back through the hotel and towards their bikes. One more member of Tempest down.

**_Meanwhile, at Iron Heights Federal Prison……._ **

\------------------------------------------------------------------

(Malcolm Merlyn and Katherine Kane-Merlyn’s POV)

Grabbing the encrypted satellite phones they had secreted into the prison, the Dark Archer and the Phantom glanced at each other and each made their calls.

“It’s on. Unleash hell.”


	8. Being Who You're Supposed To Be

**_At the Quiver……_ **

\---------------------------------------

(Curtis Holt’s POV)

At times like this, as the Green Arrow and Black Canary headed back to the base after stopping a member of Tempest in the middle of their usual nighttime patrols, he realized the stress that they were putting themselves under to save the city. He had always sort of known, because he wasn’t an idiot. But it had only become clear from being around John Diggle and Quentin Lance.

They had been soldiers, and were law enforcement men now. But more than that, they went out and tried to do good with their actual names front and center. To do that, they always ran the risk that they could hit the wrong case with the wrong perp. Especially in this city, you always ran the risk of being expected to pass a case off because it involved the wrong guy with too much money or influence to ensure that they saw justice. It hurt Quentin to know that the brass, the people who signed off on investigations, saw the police in this city as a tool to be used to settle scores or protect people. That wasn’t what they were there to do. They were there to provide justice, of a different sort than what vigilantes could do. What that meant to Quentin, and John, was that they got pensions for a life serving it. They got to have lives, and retirements, and vacations. They got to be people.

The Green Arrow and the Black Canary, by contrast, were symbols. They could be anyone, and that was part of the appeal. You didn’t know how to put any leverage on them to make them do something that was against their honor or code, because you didn’t know who they were. But that also meant no one could value their sacrifices. No one in the city knew who was under the hood, so Oliver Queen or Laurel Lance couldn’t be thanked for what they had done. If things went terribly wrong, and one of them lost their lives, no one would know who had been keeping watch over their city. They would mourn the symbol, not the person who provided it.

This had been a thing they had both commiserated over at a family dinner at the Queen Mansion. Oliver had even insisted on cooking, making a truly luxurious meal with rib-eye steaks and some truly excellent craft beers from one of the breweries in the Glades. As both he and Laurel had explained to Quentin and Ben Turner, they needed to be reminded of their humanity as much as they possibly can. Doing this job, being what they were expected to be for the city, could turn someone cold and unfeeling if you weren’t careful.

No one wanted that for them. So, Curtis thought with a smile, Oliver cooking the best steaks he ever had would not be the worst hardship he ever had to suffer through.

Come to think of it, where was Oliver? And Laurel for that matter?

(Oliver Queen’s POV)

He hated feeling like this, but as he drove back to the Quiver from the Starling City Four Seasons, all the memories of his old life hit him all at once. Not fighting alongside Barry and their confederates against Nazis from another earth, or feeling the Speed Force in his body when that whole switching lives business had happened. No, those were treasured memories. What was hitting him now was all the pain, and loss, and grief of those 8 years he had lived before. All those people he lost, dying himself not once but twice, and seeing what he had to become by the end. All of it, all that pain, was hitting him like a truck and he didn’t know what to do next.

It had taken all his willpower and self-control to not break down on his motorcycle as the memories came to him. He wondered how he had survived it all. But he was beginning to realize, with a fear that felt worse than being left for dead by Malcolm Merlyn in that warehouse last year, that he hadn’t. All he had done was slowly lose his humanity, lose everything that mattered to him but his will. At the end, at the very end of all of it, he had to lie to himself and admit he was at peace when he knew he wasn’t.

But as he pulled into the loading dock of the Quiver, he got off his bike and waited for Laurel. After all, Laurel had been there when everything about his old life had been revealed to him, and the meager role that she had played in it. None of the people inside of that warehouse would understand. How could they?

(Laurel Lance’s POV)

She had been waiting for this day. Not in excitement, but in fear. She had been rattled when the Flash had told her about her past life, and she was a minor player in the story of Oliver Queen. It hurt to know that, but it was also true. She could not **FATHOM** what Ollie was going through, knowing and having to hear everything he had gone through. The Green Arrow was the very best part of him, she knew that now. His need to see justice done, to be the person who the city could rely on to finish where the law left off, had been cultivated over 5 hard years on Yeon-Og and in the Korean peninsula. But to know that he had failed his mission, that his city had never actually gotten any better, must have been a true heartbreak.

And when she pulled up on her own motorcycle, and saw Oliver waiting for her, she knew it was hitting him like a thunderbolt. How could it not? He had been told that everything he had wanted to be, all his dreams and goals, had turned to ash. If that didn’t kill him, he wouldn’t be a person. For as much as Ollie wanted to consider himself a samurai defending Starling City from all those who would do it harm, the best part of him was his humanity. Oliver Queen was more than just the Green Arrow, and as she walked to him, she promised to be more than the Black Canary for him at times like this.

Wrapping her surprisingly strong arms around her boyfriend and partner, she knew what he needed. And what he needed couldn’t be found at the Quiver.

Turning on the comms, Laurel spoke to the support staff there with more strength than she felt.

“Oliver and I are going to the mansion. We’ll see you all in the morning.”

**_Back at the Queen Mansion………_ **

\--------------------------------------------------------------

(Oliver Queen’s POV)

The bushido ethos, the responsibility that came with it, had spoken to Oliver when they first started this quest. He fired a bow that was a dead ringer for a classic yumi, after all. Honoring their defining cultural ethos seemed only right. More than that, he had needed something to govern his life by. And this, specifically the variants of it that had existed both in the Edo and Meiji times, spoke to him in a way nearly everything else had paled in comparison to. He wanted to be what those warriors from times gone by had represented. He would be compassionate, honorable, charitable, and live in a way that honored those past legends. Shado had taught him and Slade about those legends from the past, believing that she saw the spirit of those men in them both. And up until tonight, he had always taken that as a compliment. But the weight of what he had learned, of what the Flash had told him, was weighing on him.

Five years in Korea had made him value life, made him believe in virtues the old him seemed to never know existed. And it had given him, even if he didn’t know it in the moment, a 2nd chance with Laurel. Barry’s decision, for whatever ripple effects there were, also meant Laurel was more prepared for this life than she had been.

And at this moment, as she walked him into the mansion, he was thankful for that. The weight of knowing he had done this before would not have been something he would have wanted to carry alone. Sure, he could have done it. But he really didn’t want to.

That’s what being in love was, right? It wasn’t just about the grand gestures. It was about the simple things, like being there when someone fell all the way apart. And right now, he could feel himself hanging on to his sanity by fingernails.

He had failed once before, failed to be the hero his city needed. He had become something else all right, something worse.

With fear he thought he would never feel, he was wondering if he could do this. Was his city even capable of being saved?

(Laurel Lance’s POV)

She had been by Oliver’s side as the Black Canary for a year and a few months. But she knew him, inside and out, since the first time they met as young tweens. And right now, she knew he would never have let himself show fear or concern in front of the rest of their team. It wasn’t the place for that. In that warehouse, he needed to seem to be always in control. You couldn’t lead a team, and save a city, if people wondered where your head was at.

But here? With just her? She knew he would let all his fears go. And, judging from the look in his eyes, he was terrified. And she knew exactly why. What the Flash had done was, in the aggregate, noble. From what he had told her of this crisis, through panicked breaths, it seemed like a pure stroke of luck that he had managed to destroy that old timeline and give them all the time they needed to prepare. But she couldn’t help but feel a twinge of resentment. Her true love, the one man she wanted to grow old with, had been put in a position to not have a peaceful life. Sure, the world needed him and it needed her. But hadn’t he done enough? Hadn’t he given up enough?

(Oliver Queen’s POV)

From what he understood of the timeline Barry had informed him of, this Harrison Wells had managed to put just about everything wrong that he could. He was besotted with a blonde hacker who had interrupted Barry’s own wedding, had tried FOUR different Canaries, and had become so angry and vengeful that his friends began to warn people from ending up like him. But the worst part? He had forgotten to treat the city with love and caring. Villains showed up, he defeated them with increasing brutality, and the process just repeated. Nothing got any better.

And right now, in the privacy of the Queen Mansion, he felt the shell he had been painstakingly holding up crack. He needed to do this right. He had been given a 2nd chance to do it right. But he needed to know, and this was where Laurel’s excellent counsel came in handy once again, if he was undertaking some Sisyphean task.

“Is it worth it?”

(Laurel Lance’s POV)

There it was. The question he had been working on preparing himself to ask, and the one she knew she needed the right answer for.

“Yes. It’s hard, and it’s only going to get harder. But we should still do it. We should still try. What the Flash has put on you, put on us both, is a heavy weight. But we’re capable of carrying it. Being this, saving the world, is being who we’re supposed to be. This city needs us. It needs all the good it can wrap its arms around.

You’re being who you’re supposed to be. You care for this city, you love it. And if we can do that, if we can be those kinds of heroes, carrying this weight is easy.”

(Oliver Queen’s POV)

He would need to talk to someone for this, someone who wouldn’t reveal his secrets and their mission. There was no way, none at all, that he could go through this with just Laurel to provide emotional support. That would be a disaster, he could just tell. But still, he would go forward. He would not stop.

Intellectually, he knew that this choice would be harder on him than living the life of a society playboy. Those he loved would worry about him constantly, wonder if this opponent and this battle would be the one he did not come home from. But a desire for easy had been bled off him on Yeon-Og. There was more to the world than him now. And until his last breath, he would fight to make sure he never forgot that. 

**_Meanwhile, back at the Quiver……_ **

\-------------------------------------------------------

(Curtis Holt’s POV)

When he had signed on to become a part of this confederacy, Curtis Holt had made sure to wire the computers down here to immediately pick up on police bands from both the SCPD and the FBI and other relevant federal agencies. (He didn’t particularly think the Green Arrow needed to invest time in the business of the US Forest Service.) He had also painstakingly created a compound variant of the classic Japanese yumi, and made damned sure that he knew the exact metallurgic compound of the Green Arrow’s arrowheads and shafts. Sure, Oliver had been there and made sure that they all fit the classical materials and standards used during the days when the samurai used the bow as their primary weapons. But Curtis had made them all, and he had been proud of the job he did.

And that knowledge of Oliver’s bow was going to come in handy. Because, according to the SCPD police scanner, someone had just been shot full of arrows outside the Salty Dog. If this wasn’t handled properly, he knew what would happen. The city was still tender, still expecting the worst from those who had sworn to protect it. If they believed that the Dark Archer had returned, they would blame the Green Arrow. They’d have to. And then, just for redundancy’s sake, he checked

This needed to be dealt with, and it needed to be now.

Hating himself for this, but knowing it had to be done, Curtis made the phone call.

“Oliver? Laurel? The Green Arrow and the Black Canary are needed at the Salty Dog.”

**_A few hours later at the Salty Dog……_ **

\-----------------------------------------------

(Oliver Queen’s POV)

There were things about Starling City that made it feel like it was perpetually in a noir movie. Some of that was bad, like the corruption and the fact that it needed the Green Arrow and Black Canary to make sure that any kind of justice ever got done. But in every black cloud was a silver lining, and right now, it was that no one particularly noticed if a green-clad archer was standing on the rooftop across the street from the Salty Dog.

People didn’t look up anymore. You couldn’t. There were too many thugs with switchblades or daggers walking around to do foolish things like dream or wonder. So, no one noticed him, because that was good. Because what he was seeing of this crime scene was, indisputably, terrible.

First, this wasn’t the shot that his secret admirer had been trying to make. That was a statement of intent, a show of skill. This, on the other hand, was infinitely brutal. Every arrow was placed in the spots where they’d cause the most blood loss, and the most pain. If you were going to hurt someone, this is how you’d do it with a bow.

Secondly, he noticed the fletching of these arrows was a dead ringer for the Dark Archer’s. He took note of this with some degree of fear. Merlyn was behind bars, but he had not thought to double-and-triple-check to see if his gear had been seized. If it hadn’t there were two things that could be happening. None of them particularly appealing to think about.

Option 1: This was another master-level trainee from the 12 Brothers of Silk dropping into his city. If that was what was happening here, that meant Huang Chao Ran had heard of what had happened last year. He would see it as an insult on his school’s reputation, and be duty-bound to avenge the insult. This was not good. His city was still recovering, and might not be able to withstand another plot against it.

Option 2: Somehow, Merlyn had kept his gear hidden from law enforcement and hired someone to play the role of the Dark Archer. That was also not good. That meant that the Merlyns still had access to their resources and money. If that was the case, someone dressed up as the Phantom would be doing the same thing with the Black Canary. This was his home, and people getting hurt to bring their attention to a duel was not something he could abide.

But there was something else. He could feel a little drumbeat in the back of his mind that this wasn’t all there was. So, he stepped back and took a full running leap onto the rooftop of the Salty Dog and peeked in through the skylight. And then he saw it.

Plugging his earbuds in Oliver exhaled fully and called Laurel over. 

(Laurel Lance’s POV)

She had been planning for a date night. One of the cinemas in Broadmoor was running a film noir movie marathon, and she had planned on dressing up as Veronica Lake. Because she knew Ollie loved the movies from that time period, she had even worked on practicing a femme fatale voice and walk. It was going to be perfect.

And then Curtis Holt called. And instantly, she knew.

You weren’t raised around cops without developing an investigative sense. And ever since they had put the Merlyns behind bars, hers was screaming that something wasn’t quite right. She was unsure if that was down to the idea that she couldn’t 100% trust that the gear of the Phantom and Dark Archer had been properly disposed of. But now, with a pit in her stomach that felt like fear, she was beginning to think the reason was that there was someone else. Something WORSE.

So, she slipped out of her dress and changed into her Black Canary suit. If they needed to show up at the Salty Dog, things were bad. And then she peeked down through the skylight and saw it.

She held no airs about the Salty Dog. Again, you could not have been raised around cops and not have heard of places like this. It was a crime bar, the place where the chapters of the Yakuza, Triads, and the Korean mafia held court in a peace that could only be described as deeply uneasy. But, no matter what, the people in this bar were still residents of Starling City. They MATTERED.

And every one of the people in this bar was utterly wrecked. Whoever had done this was highly trained and highly vicious. And then she saw the one thing that chilled her to the bone, to the very core.

What was Sara doing in the Salty Dog?


	9. The Rise

**_At Krieg Memorial Hospital…._ **

\------------------------------------------------------

(Laurel Lance’s POV)

She hadn’t called her father. That was, she supposed, the absolute only thing that protected Sara Marie Lance from whatever her father was going to do when she found out. It was bad enough that she was the Black Canary. Mom and Dad understood why, but it still hurt them to know their daughter felt like they had to make that choice. But to imagine that her baby sister was at the Salty Dog, when everyone knew it was a crime bar? She didn’t want to be near them when he found out. Hell, she didn’t want to be in the STATE. Because she didn’t want her father to worry any more than he had to.

She HAD to be the Black Canary. Removing that part of herself was so painful that she was loath to imagine it. But she did understand what it cost. Mom had started buying melatonin and one of those white-noise machines to make it so she could get to sleep normally, because the stress of her being a vigilante in a city like theirs was almost too much to bear. Dad had taken to baking and cooking as an outlet for his stress, and that seemed to be working.

She needed to make sure Sara was okay, and then she needed to know why. What was missing in her baby sister’s life that she needed to go to the Salty Dog?

(Sara Lance’s POV)

Being suddenly dropped into the body of a much younger version of yourself, with all your memories and knowledge from an alternate timeline, was a strange thing to have done. But her sister was alive, so she could get out in front of a little weirdness.

She didn’t know how, but Barry Allen had done it. Somehow, to hear John Constantine tell it after he awoke her post-Crisis memories with some tech she couldn’t really understand, when the Flash had revived the speed force he had created a timeline where her older sister was alive and had become the Black Canary like she was supposed to. What the Flash had done, the gift he had given her, was a debt she could never properly repay. But she knew what she had to do, and how she had to go about repaying that debt. And it started by leaving town.

The best version of herself had been on the Waverider, not here in Starling City providing a distraction from what Laurel and Oliver should have been to each other. She had loved Oliver once, she knew that. But Laurel had always been the best part of him, and he her. And now, she knew that her older sister was ready. From what she had been able to find, in asking sources Laurel would always be uncomfortable with knowing, Lady Shiva had trained her personally.

She had loved Nyssa, and knew that wherever she was, Laurel would be there to support her. The Lances, as a family, would always stick by Nyssa. But as a trainer? Nyssa could not compare to Lady Shiva.

That was not an insult. Nowhere close. Sara had been trained by the League of Assassins, the finest guild of combatants that existed, and even they were fearful of what Lady Shiva was. She was a grandmaster in every sense of the word, and someone who could take someone with the heart of a fighter into a true warrior. As good as she was, Sara knew that she could not compete with that.

So, when Laurel visited, she would tell her older sister everything. And then she would go. She’d take Tommy, because she knew he had to be struggling under the weight of being the son of a terrorist and they’d go. Besides, she was finding that she liked their relationship and was very much interested in seeing where they went together.

The White Canary was real. She just had to fly away from Starling City.

**_Meanwhile, back at the Quiver…._ **

\-------------------------------------------------

(Oliver Queen’s POV)

When he had agreed to help the Green Arrow, and the Black Canary, there were things Curtis Holt had insisted on having. One of them was a forensic science area that would be the equal of stuff you would find in the FBI’s field office. And right now, it was vital. Because while Curtis Holt was looking at the crime scene footage, Oliver Queen was struggling with a question.

There was another archer here. That much was clear. But what he didn’t know is whether it was someone picking up the mantle of the Dark Archer, or if another bowman had come to Starling City looking for a challenge. What he could also tell, from an arrow that had been retrieved from the SCPD’s undermanned forensics lab, is that whoever was behind this had apparently not given much thought to modern metallurgic technique.

He knew that, when he had crafted the arrowheads for the Green Arrow, he had made sure to use state-of-the-art Nth Metal for the heads. Sure, the arrowheads were mostly loaded with specialized weaponry and made in the old ways of the Japanese samurai swords but they were also… better. Oliver had wanted to make sure that he could blend the old ways with the new tools to make his compound yumi sing the song of justice.

But this archer? He had apparently stopped at iron, and gone no farther. What’s more, these shots were lethal because of proper placing not because of the arrow being fired. If he didn’t know better, he would think this to be fired from a laminated bow.

That knocked out the Dark Archer. Say what you want to about Malcolm Merlyn, and most people tended to, but you could never say he wasn’t on the cutting edge. He had access to the same bleeding-edge tech that Oliver did, and an entire wing of his businesses to test and re-test everything from arrow shafts to the strength of his bow. If this was Merlyn, it’d have been brilliantly constructed and state-of-the-art. This was nothing like that.

So that meant that there was another archer, someone else looking to challenge him. Things were getting a lot more complicated. So complicated, in fact, that he supposed he needed to hire a consultant to help him untangle what was going on. So, he grabbed a satellite phone and made a call. After all, in this moment, Starling City didn’t need a kyudoka or a martial artist to save it. He needed someone who was a world-class forensic scientist. 

“Barry? Can you get to Central City tomorrow?”

**_At Krieg Memorial Hospital……_ **

\----------------------------------------------

(Laurel Lance’s POV)

Sara, her baby sister who had defined the term “boy-crazy” in her mind, was sitting here with the serenity of some of the ninja who had trained with Shiva. It was almost as though Sara had come to some decision about herself, and Laurel was very much interested in knowing what it was. They had all the time in the world to figure out what this meant for her baby sister, and she was dying to help in any way she could.

But then, she heard it. Instinctually, Laurel knew what it was. The Yakuza chapter in town, who was directly related to the Yamaguchi-Gumi family, would not take kindly to some gaijin woman beating the hell out of their soldiers. No one had died in there, but from the whispers she had heard on her way up here, Sara had beaten up enough people that the back-alley doctors who still worked in Starling City would be extra-busy tonight. So, to keep honor and save face, they would avenge that insult. And if this response had taken place on the streets, the Black Canary would have understood it.

But in a hospital, a place loaded with innocent people? She would not tolerate this. One by one, man by contemptible man, they would pay for this, and they would pay at her hand. The Green Arrow didn’t need to be here for this. If the Yakuza in this city wanted to go to war in her city, the Black Canary would make that decision supremely unprofitable. But first, she had to tell her sister.

“I know there’s so much we need to talk about, Sara-bear. And when this is done, we will. But there are people in this hospital to do us harm. So, I must tell you a secret, and it’s one I don’t know how you’re going to react to. But I’m the Black Canary. I have been since I got back from that five-year spa trip to Indonesia. I can try and sneak you out of here and hold them off myself. I’ll make them think it was me who did what you did. We just need to save the nurses here, and the innocent people who had no part in what happened in the Salty Dog.”

And then, on a night already full of surprises, Laurel got another one. Her baby sister got up, tied a bandanna around her hair, and joined her older sister in a surprisingly textbook scissor stance and got ready to repel their threats.

Laurel would ask later. Right now, they had an assault to repel.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There were things Shiva hadn’t officially taught, but that had nonetheless become extra-credit work for those who wanted to learn. And right now, the one lesson that she had learned was the value of siege works. Because right now, they needed to guard an entire hospital of nurses and innocent people from the Yakuza. She imagined the godfather at the head of this family might be nonplussed at the notion that his men raided a hospital, but she couldn’t be sure. Anger and humiliation could change people. And a gangster couldn’t necessarily be called honorable, even on their best days.

Regardless of that, she had an area to defend. She didn’t really know what her sister could do, although there was a small but growing plume of hope that indicated she could know a lot more than she was letting on. But it didn’t matter.

The Lance sisters were the only two people standing between the Yakuza and a hospital of potential victims. They would not be failed.

To hear the nurses who were hiding behind counters tell it, watching it was like seeing the Starling City Ballet melded with an action movie. Every blow was thrown with no wasted motion and maximum effect. They had known, from newspapers and the radio, that the Black Canary and Green Arrow had sworn to protect the essential workers of the city. But until this moment, they hadn’t seen what that protection meant.

In this moment, they did. With every kick that flowed like water, and every strike, they began to understand what they were getting.

Before long, as the last thug was staggering to the elevator, the nurses here at Krieg Memorial were making a promise. If the Black Canary was ever hurt, they would protect her like she was protecting them.

**_Across the street from Krieg Memorial Hospital…._ **

\---------------------------------------------------------------------

(Jade Nguyen’s POV)

She supposed that the Merlyns had never had to hire an assassin before. When you were the Dark Archer and the Phantom, something like hiring someone to do your dirty work better than you could do it yourself was probably an insult. The trouble with that is that they didn’t know the basic protocol for hiring someone like her. There were protocols for this type of thing, namely that if you were hiring a 2nd assassin, you told the first about them.

She had asked around in certain places, dark places, and found out that there was an archer roaming in the city. She knew it wasn’t the Green Arrow. Whoever was underneath that mask was beloved. He never had to play tricks like that. One night, she found him. They had become allies, as they both understood that the greatest strength of their targets was in their unity. And because they were allies, united by a paycheck from their employers, they taught each other things. She taught him how to use the rare compounds she had created, and he taught her an easy delivery system to use those compounds. But, as she was standing across the street, she realized something. The Black Canary was all alone.

They had been waiting for this moment, waiting for a time when they could trap one of them without the other. And so, she found her sniper rifle loaded with poison-tipped darts, aimed, and fired.

**_Back at the hospital……_ **

\-----------------------------------------

(Sara Lance’s POV)

She had not spent as much time training under Nyssa as she had purely because the woman was beguiling, although she was. She had been trained in the League’s “house style” for hand-to-hand combat, a blend of Muay Thai, Wing Chun, and karate from the Shindo Jinen-Ryu school. It was designed to be flowing, smooth, but never lacking for power. It was the style she had used to beat 24th-century hired guns, ninja during the era of Samurai, and even time-displaced Vikings, pirates, and Roman centurions. The League was a great many things, most of them horrible, but no one could say that they didn’t train master combatants.

But if she had just been trained on what to do with her hands, Sara would not have become the feared fighter she was known to be in what she was thinking of as the bad timeline. There was more to being a proper assassin, a proper ninja, than just hand-to-hand skill. Nyssa had also trained her in the art of deception, and honed her reflexes until they were razor-sharp. And right now, that was paying more dividends than even Laurel knew. Because she could hear a crack of a sniper rifle, and knew someone was coming for her older sister. 

It was her greatest regret that she hadn’t been able to be there for Laurel, to save her when Damien Darkh killed her. It would not happen again.

(Laurel Lance’s POV)

She didn’t realize her sister was that strong. Sure, Sara was never the stereotypical plump chef but it also didn’t ever make sense that her baby sister could move that fast, or tackle her to the ground like she was a linebacker for the Seahawks. But then, she saw it. Embedded in her sister’s cotton hospital gown was a blowdart, and in it was a liquid that was slowly draining into her body. This was the work of a sniper, and she knew the Phantom had hired her. Picking up two handfuls of her baby sister, Laurel thanked god she was able to deadlift 225 kg because Sara was flopping around in her arms like a fish. Once she got her into an empty bed, the Black Canary slipped into a nearby broom closet and broke down.

Not Sara. Not like this.


End file.
